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ADVERTISEMENT. 



In the present edition of Lady Morgan's work, 
care has been taken, to translate all the words and 
phrases, so plainly and intelligibly, that persons igno- 
rant of the French language may be enabled to peruse 
with ease and satisfaction this interesting account of 
France. An account, more satisfactory than any 
other that has yet appeared, of eminent persons, and 
remarkable places — of the present state of manners, 
customs, society, amusements and literature of Paris — 
and of the feelings and sentiments of the French na- 
tion generally, on the subject of the great events that 
have so much changed the political aspect of that coun- 
try. Nor will the appendix of sir T. Charles Morgan 
be read with less interest for the solid information it 
affords on the topics embraced in it. 

The copyright embraces the translation only. 

In dividing the work into two parts (besides the ap- 
pendix) the plan of the London edition has been fol- 
lowed. 

Philadelphia, October 1st, 1817, 



FRANCE. 



Chaque jour de ma vie est une feuille <lans mon livre. 

Thomis- 



Che se riflession, commento, o glossa, 
Faccio talor sopra il brutal governp, 
Lo fo, perche ciascun confrontar possa 
Con quei tempi antichissimi il moderno, 
Onde felicitarsi appien possiamo 
Dei fort unati secoli in cui siamo. 

Casti. Gli Ahimali Parlanti. 

Canto xviii. Stroph 106- 



e 

WITH THE ADDITION OF 

AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE FRENCH WORDS AND PHRASES 



PHILADELPHIA: 

PUBLISHED BY M. THOMAS, NO. 52, CHESNUT STREET- 
4817. 












DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA, to wit: 

BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the 1st day of October, in the forty- 
second year of the independence of the United States of America, A. D. 
1817, Moses Thomas, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the 
title of a book, the right whereof he claims as proprietor, in the words fol- 
lowing, to wit: 

FRANCE. BY LADY MORGAN. 

Chaque jour de ma vie est une feuille dans mon livre. Thomas. 

Che se riflession, commento, o glossa, 
Faccio talor sopra il brutal governo, 
Lo fo, perch£ ciascun confrontar possa 
Con quei tempi antichissimi il moderno, 
Onde felicitarsi appien possiamo 
Deifortunati secoli in cui siamo. 

Casti. GliA nimali Parian ti. 

Canto xviii. Stroph 106: 

WITH THE ADDITION 

OF AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE FRENCH 
WORDS AND PHRASES. 

In conformity to the act of Congress of the United States entitled, " An 
act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, 
charts, and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the 
times therein mentioned." And also to the act, entitled, " An act supple- 
mentary to an act entitled "An act for the encouragement of learning, 
by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and pro- 
prietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned, and extending 
the benefits 1 hereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching histo- 
rical and other prints." 

DAVID CALDWELL, 
Clerk of the District of Pennsylvania. 



PREFACE. 



I offer the following work to public notice, with feel- 
ings of great intimidation and distrust. To an undertak- 
ing, at once arduous and delicate, I have brought none % 
of those advantages most favourable to the mechanism of 
authorship; and in a series of narrated observations, 
over whose dryness the graces of fiction shed no ex- 
traneous charm, I have unavoidably been denied the 
time for leisurely composition. For it was necessary, 
from the nature of the work (intended to reflect the 
changeful images of the day, and in their true charac- 
ter and colouring, 

" To catch, if I could, the Cynthias of the minute)," 

to preserve the passing fact in the strength of its ori- 
ginal occurrence: to forestall anecdote and anticipate 
detail, ere the rapid current of public events should 
force them through the various channels of society, 
and lessen their value by extending their circulation. 

Starting from the post with many abler competitors, 
my object was, if possible, to distance those by time, if 
I could not rival them in skill, and, in my effort to clear 
the ground, and to arrive first at the goal, I fear I have 
attained my end with more celerity than grace. 

The following pages have been composed between 
the months of November and March, from the heads 
of a journal, kept with regularity during my residence 
in France, in the year 1816: and having bound myself 



VI PREFACE. 

to my publisher to be ready for the press before April,* 
I was obliged to compose a trait de plume, to send off 
the sheets chapter by chapter, without the power of 
detecting repetitions by comparison, and without the 
hope of correction from the perusal of proof sheets. 
Publishing in one country, and residing in another, it 
was not to be expected that the press would wait upon 
th chances of wind and tide, for returns either in or 
out of course. 

To the inaccuracies of haste, a fault less excusable 
has been added; I mean the frequent recurrence of 
French sentences and dialogues, which break up and 
disfigure the text; a fault which arose from my anxiety 
to give impressions with all the warmth and vigour 
with which I received them; to preserve the form with 
the spirit ; to repeat the jargon of the court, or the cot- 
tage, the well-turned point of the dutchess, or the patois 
of the peasant, as I caught and took them down de vive 
voix in my tablets, or retained and recorded them in 
my journal. While I thus endeavour to account for 
faults, I cannot excuse; and to solicit the indulgence of 
that public from whom I have never experienced seve- 
rity, I make no effort to deprecate professional criti- 
cism, because I indulge no hope from its mercy. There 
is one review, at least, which must necessarily place 
me under the ban of its condemnation; and to which 
the sentiments and principles scattered through the 
following pages (though conceived and expressed in 
feelings the most remote from those of local or party 
policy) will afford an abundant source of accusation, 

* The subsequent May, equally injurious to the interest of the work, 
and to the reputation of the author, rests entirely with the publisher. 



PREFACE. Vll 

as being foreign to its own narrow doctrines, and op- 
posed to its own exclusive creed. I mean the Quarterly 
Review. It may look like presumption to hope, or even 
to fear its notice; but I, at least, know by experience, 
that in the omniscience of its judgment it can stoop 

" To break a butterfly upon a wheel." 

It is now nearly nine years since that review selected 
me as an example of its unsparing severity; and; de- 
viating from the true object of criticism, made its 
strictures upon one of the most hastily composed and 
insignificant of my early works a vehicle for an un- 
provoked and wanton attack upon the personal cha- 
racter and principles of the author. The slander thus 
hurled against a young and unprotected female, strug- 
gling in a path of no ordinary industry and effort, for 
purposes sanctified by the most sacred feelings of na- 
ture, happily fell hurtless. The public of an enlighten- 
ed age, indulgent to the critical errors of pages com- 
posed for its amusement, under circumstances, not of 
vanity or choice, but of mcessity, has by its counte- 
nance and favour, acquitted me of those charges under 
which I was summoned before their awful tribunal, 
and which tended to banish the accused from society, 
and her works from circulation: for "licentiousness, 
profligacy, irreverence, blasphemy, libertinism, disloy- 
alty, and atheism/ 5 were no venial errors. Placed by 
that public in a definite rank among authors, and in 
no undistinguished circle Sf society, alike as woman 
and as author, beyond the injury of malignant scur- 
rility, whatever form it may assume, I would point out 
to those who have yet to struggle through the arduous 



Vlll PREFACE. 

and painful career that I have ran, the feebleness of 
unmerited calumny, and encourage those who receive 
with patience and resignation the awards of dignified 
and legitimate criticism, to disregard and contemn the 
anonymous slander with which party spirit arms its 
strictures, under the veil of literary justice. 

In thus recurring to the severe chastisement which 
my early efforts received from the judgment of the 
Quarterly Review, it would be ungrateful to conceal 
that it placed 

" My bane and antidote at once before me," 

and that in accusing me of " licentiousness, profligacy, 
irreverence, blasphemy, libertinism, disloyalty, and 
atheism," it presented a nostrum of universal efficacy, 
which was to transform my vices into virtues, and to 
render me, in its own words, " not indeed a good writer 
of novels, but a useful friend, a faithful ivife, a tender 
mother, and a respectable and happy mistress of a 
family" 

To effect this purpose, " so devoutly to be wished," 
it prescribed a simple remedy: " To purchase imme- 
diately a spelling book, to which, in process of time, 
might be added a pocket dictionary, and to take a few 
lessons in joining-hand; which superadded to a little 
common sense, in place of idle raptures," were finally 
to render me Jthat valuable epitome of female excel- 
lence, whose price Solomon has declared above rubies. 

While I denied the crJfhes thus administered to, I 
took the advice for the sake of its results; and like 
* Coelebs in search of a wife," with his ambulating 
virtues, I set forth with my Mavor and my Entick in 



PREFACE. IX 

search of that conjugal state, one of the necessary 
qualifications for my future excellencies. With my dic- 
tionary in my pocket, with my spelling book in one 
hand, and my copperplate improvements in the other, I 
entered my probation ; and have at last (thanks to the 
Quarterly Review) obtained the reward of my calli- 
graphic and orthographic acquirements. As it foretold, 
I am become, in spite of the " seven deadly sins" it 
laid to my charge, " not indeed a good writer of no- 
vels," but, I trust, " a respectable," and, I am sure, " a 
happy mistress of a family." 

In the fearful prophecy so long made, that I should 
never write a good novel, the Quarterly Review, in its 
benevolence, will at least not be displeased to learn 
that I have written some that have been successful] 
and that while my Glorvinas, Luximas, and Lolottes, 
have pleaded my cause at home, like " very Daniels" 
they have been received abroad with equal favour and 
indulgence; and that O'Donnel has been transmitted to 
its author in three different languages. Having thus^ 
I hope, settled " my long arrear of gratitude with 
Alonzo," I am now ready to begin a new scorce; and 
await the sentence of my quondam judge, in the spirit 
of one 

"Who neither courts nor fears 
His favour nor his hate. 

In a work which bears the sweeping title of c France/ 
(a title adopted by necessity, because none other was 
left me), it would be a strange solecism to omit all no- 
tice of the jurisprudence, medical science, and finance 
of that country; subjects connected with its most vital 
existence, but far beyond my limited sphere of inquiry, 

b 



X PREFACE. 

At rrry request, my husband has undertaken to furnish 
some sketches on these points, which form the pages 
of the appendix. 

For the authenticity of the great mass of anecdotes 
with which I have endeavoured to relieve the weariness 
of narrative, I can no further vouch, than that I ob- 
tained" them from persons distinguished by their rank, 
talents, and high respectability; and that I give them 
in the saloon or the boudoir. I have omitted many 
that were doubtful, even though they w r ere amusing; 
and I have transcribed few that were not corroborated 
by persons of very different principles and interests. 
My object was to come at the truth, and I trust I have 
pretty generally succeeded. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The Publisher feels himself called upon to state, 
that the delay which has taken place in the appearance 
of this work, has arisen, in the first place through the 
very illegible state in which the manuscript was trans- 
mitted to him, and which, therefore, required twice the 
usual time to print: Secondly, in consequence of the 
author undertaking (without success) to procure a 
French translator for the Paris edition, the advan- 
tages of which it was incumbent on the publisher to se- 
cure, in order to reimburse himself for the very large 
sum paid for copyright: and thirdly, by the author's 
wish to have the French translation published without 
any of the political passages being suppressed, a pro- 
ceeding which the reader will immediately perceive 
would have caused the confiscation of the work by the 
French government. 

Conduit Street, Hanover Square, 
June the 7th, 1817. 



CONTENTS. 

BOOK I. 

THE PEASANTRY. 

The peasantry before the Revolution. — Condition of the Peasantry 
arising out of the Revolution. — The Labourers. — Farmers. — 
Small Proprietors. — Military Labourers. — Farmer of D'Orson- 
ville. — Cottager of the Vallee of Dorsai. — Rural Economy. — 
Market day at Montreil.- Peasant Dwelling. — Morals. — Do- 
mestic Manners and Affections. — -Religion. — Religious Proces- 
sions.— Popular Superstitions. — Diet, — -Hospitality. — Mendici- 
ty. — Charity. — Costume. — Physiognomy. — The Basque- 
Summary. ...... 1 

BOOK II. 

SOCIETY. 

National Characteristics.— Sketch of Manners, before the Revo- 
lution. — During the Revolution.— Under the Imperial Govern- 
ment. — Actual State of Society and Manners, in France.— 
" The Children of the Revolution." — Royalists. — Ultra-Roy- 
- ahsts. — Constitutionalists, and Bonapartists. — Conversation. — 
Raconteurs. — Political Vaudevilles. — Tone of the Circle's. — 
French Youth. — The Eleve of the Polytechnic School. — Reli- 
gious Institutions! — School of Ecouen. . .65 

BOOK III. 

SOCIETY. 

Woman.—- Her former Influence, and actual Position in French 
Society. — National Characteristics.— Madame D'Houdetot. — 
Married Life. — Gallantry, Manners, Education.— Domestic 
Habits. — The Femme de Chambre. — Im Bonne. — Domestic 
Servitude.-^-The Toilette. — The Royal Trousseau, g .122 



XIV CONTENTS. 

BOOK IV. 

PARIS. 

Habits of the Parisian Table. — Petits-Soupers. — Dejeuners a la 
fourchette. — Chateau de Plaisance. — Vincennes. — Chappelle 
expiatoi're. — Hospitality. — Dinners. — The Soiree. — The grande 
Reunion. — The Bal Pare. . . . . . .173 

BOOK V.— PART II. 

PARIS. 

Boulevards Italiens. — General Architectural Arrangement of 
Paris — Banks of the Seine. — The Hotel Bourbon. — The 
Louvre. — The Gallery. — Modern French Artists. — The Place 
de Carrousel. — The Thuilleries. — The Sorbonne. — The Pan- 
theon. — Bibiiotheque du Pantheon. — The Luxembourg. — Bi- 
biiotheque du Roi. — De Mazarin. — Librarians. — The Gobelins. 
— The Shop Signs. — Private Hotels. — Historical Scites. — 
Hotel de Beaumarchais — Hotel de la Regniere. — Aimanach 
des Gourmands. — Hotel de Sommariva. — Works of Can.ova.— 
Hotel de Craufurdo — Gallery of the Beauties of Louis XIV. — 
Hotel Borghese. — Hotel and Collection of Baron Denon. 1 

BOOK VI. 

PARIS. 

Street Population of Paris. — Industry. — Beggars. — Civilization 
of the Lower Orders. — Language. — Morals. — The Bour- 
geoisie. — The Sunday of a Parisian Shopkeeper. — The higher 
Classes of Citizens .49 

BOOK VII. 

THE FRENCH THEATRE. 

The French Tragedy. — Racine. — The Theatre Francais. — Bri- 
tannicus. — Talma. — St. Prix. — Style of Acting. — Of Enuncia- 
tion. — Mademoiselle Duchesnois. — Mademoiselle George. — 
Costume. — A first Representation. — Charlemagne. — Mons. le 
Mercier. — La Fonde. — L'avocat Patelin. — French Comedy. — 
Moliere. — Tartuffe. — Mademoiselle Mars. — Mademoiselle le 
Vert. — Fleury. — Michaud. — The Audience. — The Odeon. — 
The Chevalier Canolle. — The Academie Royalc de Musique. 
— French Music. — Oedipe. — Devin du Village. — Influence of 
Ronaparte on the State of Music, in France. — Paesiello. — 
Cherubini — CimaTOsa. — Pair. — Blangmi. — Boieldieu. — Bcr- 
ton. — Lambert. — Mehul le Sueur. — The Court "Aeatre at the 



CONTENTS. XV 

Thuilleries. — Theatre des Vaudevilles. — Theatre des Varie- 
tes. — Brunet, Potier. — Theatre des Boulevards; — Sampson.— 
Joseph.— Sacrifice d' Abraham. — Pieces de circonstance. 62 

BOOK VIII. 

EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

Academies of France, — The Institut Imperiale. — First Sitting of 
the Institut Royal. — Notices of eminent and literary Charac- 
ters. — L'Abbe Morrellet. — Due de Brancas, — Suard. — Lally 
Tollendal — La Fayette. — Giunguene. — Gregoire. — Le Mer- 
cier. — Volney.— Segur. — Denon. — Due de Levis. — Chateau- 
briand. — Pastoret. — A Pastoret. — Pigault le Brim. — Picard. — 
Mesdames de Stael, — de Genlis, — de Souza, — de Villette.— 
Conclusion. .... .... 103 

FOUR APPENDICES. 

BY SIR CHARLES MORGAN. 

On the State of Law. . . . . v 

Finance. ..... xxvi 

Medicine. ..... xlii 

Political Opinion, in France. , . lxi 



FRANCE. 



BOOK L 

The Peasantry. 



■" L'homme doit pouvoir de plover ses faculty's, disposer de ses richesses, pour* 
voir a ses besoins, avec line liberte entiere. L'interet general de chaque socie- 
te, loin d'ordonner d'en restreindre l'exercice, defend au contraire d'y porter 
atteinte ; et dans cette partie de l'ordre public, le soin d' assurer a chacun les 
droits qu'il tient de la nature est encore a la fois la seule politique utile, le seul 
devoir de la puissance sociale, et le seul droit que la volonte generate puisse 
legitimement exercer sur les individus." 

Cojtdobcet, Progres de PEsprit» 



Tlie Peasantry before the Revolution. — Condition of the Peasantry 
arising out of the Revolution. — TJie Labourers. — Farmers.— 
Small Proprietors. — Military Labourers. — Farmer of D' Orson- 
ville. — Cottager of the Yallee of Dorsai. — Rural Economy.— 
Market Day at Montreuil.-— Peasant Dwelling. — Morals. — Do- 
mestic Manners and Affections. — Religion. — Religious Proces- 
sions. — Popular Superstitions. — Diet. — Hospitality. — Mendici- 
ty. — Chanty. — Costu me. — Ph ysiognomy. — The Basque—Sum> 
mary. 

POLITICAL revolution, the inevitable result of undue pre- 
ponderance in some order of the state in which it occurs, pre- 
sents, in the moral subversion it occasions, an image of those 
fearful symptoms, by which nature in her great volcanic strug- 
gles rights herself, and vindicates her violated laws ; and the 
convulsions of disorganizing matter best typify the throes and 
efforts of social and political dissolutions. Fermentation works 
alike in both : destructive particles are forced to the surface : 
much of what is good is overwhelmed in the impetuosity of the 
torrent : much of wiiat is bad reigns paramount through its 
hour of necessary agency. The evil, however, which caused 
the explosion is at length removed ; and these tumultuous ac> 

B 



g PEASANTRY. 

tions, subsiding into quiescence, terminate by a necessary cau- 
sation in the re-establishment of harmony and order. A new 
form of things presents itself ; new arrangements arise out of 
the elementary wreck of exhausted systems ; and in political, 
as in natural science, new facts are inscribed on the tables of 
human experience ; new combinations extend the sphere of hu- 
man views ; and new lights beam upon the collected mass of 
liuman knowledge, to correct its theories and to fortify its con- 
clusions. 

When the burning floods and frightful explosions of Vesuvi- 
us poured ruin and desolation on every object within the sphere 
of its convulsed action, the elder Pliny was seen exposing him- 
self to its varied forms of danger in the cause of knowledge, and 
for the benefit of his species : his spirit soaring in sublimity a- 
bove the wreck of matter, as nature, with all her awful secrets, 
stood revealed before him. But to the greatest political explo- 
sion that time has ever witnessed, or history recorded ; to the 
revolution of France few philosophical Plinys have brought their 
cool and unbiassed scrutiny. The event which has shaken the 
greatest dynasties of the earth, torn the creed of the most pow- 
erful religion, subdued opinions coeval with record, and weak- 
ened ties twisted with the very instincts of nature, has rarely 
been viewed through any medium but that of passion, or discus- 
sed in any language but that of prejudice. 

It has, indeed, in its progress, been contemplated with well 
merited horror. It has dazzled the visionary, it has frightened 
the timid. The oppressor and the oppressed have alike turned 
its events to their purpose ; to exhibit it as a warning, or to 
seize upon it as an example. But while history with her impar- 
tial testimony exposes the causes of the French revolution, in 
the increasing abuses of the government, and in the consequent 
demoralization of the people, its effects on the nation, out of 
whose wrongs it arose, are only to be estimated in the interior 
of society, and in the detailed minutiae of every-day existence. 
It is by an intimate acquaintance with the changes impressed 
upon all the various conditions and classes of the population, that 
its good and evil can alone be appreciated ; and when prejudice 
disfigures, and policy misrepresents, philanthropy will exult- 
ingly point to domestic ameliorations, and philosophy triumph 
in the justification of her theories. 

« Liberty and property," says Voltaire, " is the cry of the 
English ; it is the cry of nature :" and he adds, in his own pe- 
culiar style, " II vaut mieux que St. George et mon droit; St. Ve- 
ins, et mont joie" — [Saint George and my right, is better than 
Saint Denis and my pleasure.] To the oppressed and misera- 



t 



PEASANTRY. % 

Me peasant of France all natural expression was denied. "With 
every feeling of humanity violated, with every social institute 
perverted, they had learned by experience that complaint was 
unavailing, and resistance ruin.* An event, however, occur- 
red, which, forwarded by their wrongs, was destined to work 
their redemption ; and the total overthrow of that frightful sys- 
tem of feudality, which had so long crushed them into slavery, 
was among the first and best works of the revolution. To form 
a just idea of the magnitude and proportions of the giant struc- 
ture, as it stood, frowning over the waste it had occasioned, the 
production of a few scattered fragments will suffice ; nor is any 
minute detail of its complicated deformities necessary to excuse 
or to justify the reaction, which followed evils so harshly inflio 
ted, and so patiently sustained. 

The corvee, [day's work exacted by the landlord from the 
tenant] — (which, in giving France such noble roads, robbed the 
peasant of his sole possessions, his time and his labour) tore 
him not unfrequently from his family and home to labour in a 
distant province ; nor were the direct evils belonging to this 
system the only means of oppression to its victims. The cor» 
vec, in the hands of petty tyranny, became a convenient instru- 
ment to hold out as a threat, or to inflict as a punishment 5 and 
occasionally it was even applied to remove an uncomplying hus- 
band or vigilant father from the protection of his family, and the; 
vindication of his honor. 

The droit de chasse, [game law] while it ravaged the fields, 
destroying the full half of their produce, estimated the life of ^ 
hare above the liberty of a man ; and where want afforded such 
irresistible impulses to violate its enactments, bound its vic- 
tims, for a conventional offence, to the oar of a galley.f 

The droit coutumier, or code of customary law, varied in 
every province; and by its uncertainty and disagreement with it- 
self, multiplied the evils of litigation to the poor, and frequent^ 
ly extinguished even the hope of justice to the wronged. 

* See LesDictionnaires des Fiefs de M. de Treminville, et de Prenaudon. 

The resistance made in La Bretagne, under the reign of Louis XIV. to the 
tyranny and insupportable exactions of the government, was punished with a 
severity that approached to extermination ! The city of Rennes was nearly de* 
populated ; and the troops were every where let loose, to commit every spe- 
cies of violence on the defenceless inhabitants. 

f " When I had a house at Epinay, sur Seine," said an English friend of mine, 
who resided in France before the Revolution, " I observed every day a large 
water cart brought from the river to the house of the Marechal D'Aubterre, 
who resided near me, and drawn by six men in harness. On enquiry, I found 
that these yoke mates had killed some of the marshal's game, and that he had 
thus commuted their sentence, instead of removing them from their femjUes to 
the gullies at Marseilles." 



g PEASANTRY. 

Of the gabelle, [tax on salt] so oppressive in its exactions as 
to become a spectre to the imaginations of the ignorant and the 
poor, it is impossible to give an adequate representation. — 
Whatever was most tyrannical in government, and most absurd 
in morals, was to be found in the enactments calculated to raise 
the revenue, and ensure the collection of this detestable tax. — . 
Every morsel of meat the peasant might possesss was previ- 
ously estimated, and his consumption of salt, the excised com- 
modity, regulated by computation. The smallest infringement 
of the dreadful code was unpityingly punished by confinement, 
(temporary, or for life) on board the gallies.* Every thing, 
therefore, that appeared amongst the simple peasantry, either 
novel or mysterious, goading or insupportable, was placed in 
their apprehension to the account of the gabelle.j 

The tithe, that vexatious tax upon the most laborious class of 
society, for the support and luxury of the most indolent, was 
rendered more burthensome, from the multitude of other im- 
posts which fell upon the cultivator. 

The taille, [land-tax] and indeed the whole direct taxation 
of the kingdom, fell exclusively upon the people, the estates 
and persons of the privileged classes being wholly exempt from 
imposition. The personal slavery of a large portion of the 
population, especially in Franche Comte, of which the clergy 
held a considerable portion in main morte, [mortmain] em- 
braced in itself all that was most odious in the legal, sanctioned 
outrages upon human reason and human feeling, all the multi- 
plicity of oppression which filled up the code of feodal rights. 
The peasantry, thus abandoned to contempt and to neglect, and 
cultivating a plenteous soil for others, which they could never 
Lope to reap for themselves, submitted from generation to ge- 
neration with a debasing acquiescence to their iron destiny $ 

* Des enfans de trieze ans, condamnes aux galeres, pour avoir tte trouves 
avec leurs peres, convaincus de contrabande. — Voila le code dn fisc ; voila 
l'indulgence pour le fisc ; on lui a vendu le sang innocent ! et on se tait ! — I)u- 
paty Lettres sur V Italie. 

[Children of thirteen, condemned to the galleys, for being- found with their 
fathers when detected in smuggling. — This is the fiscal code ; and this is the 
indulgence allowed to the fiscal code ; innocent blood is sold! and nothing is 
Said about it ! — Dupaty's Letters on Italy.] 

j- " Un cure avoit recu, devant ses paroissiens, une peiulule. Us se mirent 
tous a crier," que e'etoit la gabelle, et qu'ils le voyoient fort bien. " Le cure 
habile leur dit, et sur le meme ton, point du tout, mes enfans, ce n'est pas 
la gabelle, e'est lejubile. En memo terns les voila tous a genoux. Que dites- 
vous dubon esprit de ces gens la ?" — Lettres de Sevignt, vol. iii. 

[" A rector had received a clock, in presence of his parishioners. They 
all exclaimed that it was the salt-tax, they knew it well." The adroit rector 
humouring their ignorance, told them "not at all, my children, it is not the 
salt-tax, it is the jubilee " " In a moment they were all down on their knees. 
What do you think of the intellect of these people V'—Sevigu&s Letters.] 



PEASANTRY. 5 

and though they lightened the burthen of a miserable existence 
by constitutional gaiety ; though they sung in chains and danced 
in rags ; yet how sensibly they suffered, was marked* in their 
meagre features and attenuated forms ; how keenly they felt, 
was evinced in the reaction of their feelings, when circumstances 
placed the sword of retribution in their hands, and vengeance 
exceeded her customary horrors, in the ferocious deeds of the 
Carmagnoles and the Marseillois. 

It has always been observed by the travellers who visited 
France before the revolution, and particularly by the English, 
and by agricultural travellers, that the peasantry of that coun- 
try were a singularly laborious and pains-taking race, enduring 
much, and suffering patiently. — Mr. Young gives it as his 
opinion, that "they would have improved the country, if they 
had formed any part in a system, the principles of which tended 
towards national prosperity.'* But no such system appeared, 
until the occurrence of that great bouleversement 9 [overthrow] 
out of whose principles of destruction and regeneration the 
present improved condition of the peasant population of France 
arose. 

England, in the sixteenth century, set a great example to 
the rest of Europe, when she seized upon the overgrown pos- 
sessions of the church, and converted the unhallowed fruits of 

* Theii numerous little insurrections in the provinces, and the horrible out- 
rages which their despair urged them to commit, even against nature, is a suf- 
ficient proof of their sensibility to their wrongs. 

" Un pauvre homme passementier dans le fauxbourg St. Marceau, e"toit taxe 
a dix ecus pourun impot sur les maitrises. II ne les avoit pas ; on le presse et 
represse, il demand du tems, on le lui refuse — on prend son pauvre lit, et sa 
pauvre ecuelle — quand il se vit en cet etat, la rage s'empare de son coeur ; il 
coupe la gorge a trois de ses enfans, qui etoient dans sa chambre — sa femme 
sauve le quatrieme, ets'enfuit; le pauvre homme est au Chatelet, il sera 
pendu dans un jour. Il dit que tout son deplaisir, e'est de n' avoir pas tue sa 
femme, et l'enfant qu'elle a sauve." [" A poor man? a lacemaker in the 
fauxbourg St. Marceau, was taxed ten crowns, an impost levied on each indi- 
vidual of the company of lacemakers. He had not the money ; payment was 
urged and urged again ; he begged for time ; it was refused him. They took 
his bed and even his porringer — when he found himself reduced to this deplo- 
rable condition, despair made him frantic — he cut the throats of three of his 
children, who were in the room with him — his wife saved the fourth, and ran 
out of the house ; the poor man is in the Chatelet, and will be hanged tomorrow. 
He says that all his regret is, not having killed his wife, and his infant."] The 
conclusion of this description is curious, and quite in character both with the 
times and the writer. — " On devoit partir aujourd'hui pour Fontainbleau, ou les 
plozsirs devoient devenir ties peines, par leur muliiplicitt ?'." — Lettres de Sevigne, 
vol. iii. [" To day we set out for Fontainbleau, where pleasures, become pains 
from their multiplicity." — Sevigne's Letters."] 

This dreadful system of taxation, which maddened the lower classes into 
"mirder, only went to supply the expenses of a voluptuous prince, and to mul- 
tiply the pleasures et hk court, tiU they became t( pai7is* i 



PEASANTRY. 

fraud and impiety to the benefit of the state. Men, devoted by 
their institutions and orders to poverty and humility, engrossed 
the riches of the country, and preserved a twofold influence, 
spiritual and temporal, subversive of the interests of society. 
But, the original abuse destroyed, the undue influence declined, 
superstition lost ground, and wealth circulated with a more 
equal and salutary distribution.* What the despotism of Henry 
VIII. effected in England, the democratic principles of the re- 
volution accomplished in France ;} and the sale of the national 
domains was one of the strongest measures of this extraordi- 
nary event, producing incalculable benefit to the lower and ag- 
ricultural classes, while the mode in which this measure was 
executed was eminently constituted to attach the peasantry 
to the revolutionary cause, and to induce them to give their aid 
and sanction to a political change, which, in emancipating them 
from slavery, added property to freedom, and converted five 
hundred thousand labouring serfs into independent proprietors. 
In the public sale of the national domains, the government be- 
came the agent of the peasantry : a certain portion of land, or- 
dinarily contiguous to his dwelling, was given to each peasant 
who presented himself as a purchaser ; time was granted him 
to pay the purchase-money, and a small sum was advanced, to 
enable the new proprietor to commence the cultivation of his 
little farm. « Give a man secure possession of a bleak rock/' 
says a celebrated agriculturalist, " and he will convert it into- 

* Of the mode of assigning 1 lands to the church in France, many curious in- 
stances were discovered during the revolution, from the ancient archives of 
the cathedrals. In 1470, Louis XI. assigned over the whole Comte de Bou- 
logne to the Virgin Mary, and promised to do her homage for it, in the per- 
son of the Abbe de Notre Dame de Boulogne: but, says a national writer, 
" D'abord cet hommage religieux se rendit sur Pautel, et s'ofYrit directement 
au saint. Bientot l'eveque, l'abbe, le titulaire du benefice se plaga entre 
Pautel et le pieux vassal, et regut l'hommage, aunom du saint. Insensible- 
meut on oublia le saint, et I'ecclesiastique s'attribua tout l'honneur, en qualite 
de beneficier." [" First this religious hommage was paid to the altar, and offered 
directly to the Virgin. Very soon the bishop, the abbot, or the titulary of the 
benefice, placed himself between the altar and the pious vassal, ami received 
the homage in the name of the Virgin. Insensibly the Virgin was forgotten, 
and the ecclesiastic took all the honour to himself, in character of beneficier." 

f The inhabitants of Condon, in the department du Gers, gave an eight]., 
instead of a tenth, in consequence of the clergy of the diocese having pro- 
raised to liberate annually from purgatory two hundred and fifty souls of their 
friends and relations, and to conduct them to Paradise straight 

/.lonsieur Falconet, in his work on the necessity of restoring' all the church 
lands to the clergy, ascribes all the horrors of the revolution to the violation 
of their sacred property. He strongly recommends the measure of turning 
-adrift all the present proprietors, and of restoring* the domains of the rich 
monasteries, which were bequeathed to heaven by many a pious penitent, "comb- 
ine fondation pour le remede de son ame." [" As an endowment for the re- 
lief of his soul."] He mentions Miraibeav. incidentally as nti Mzmbieun This 

pamphlet has many admirers among 1 the royalist pa* 



PEASANTRY. y 

a garden ; give him a few years' lease of a garden, and lie will 
turn it into a desert." The truth of this position was strongly 
illustrated in the present proprietors of France; and notwith- 
standing the evil influence which the spirit of foreign conquest 
in their late ruler must have had upon the resources and 
industry of the people, yet when the allies first approached the 
frontiers of the French territory, they invaded a country whose 
peasantry were the hest conditioned, and most prosperous of 
any nation in Europe. In visiting the extensive farm of a per- 
son of rank and fortune, in the Isle of France, and remarking 
to him the apparent opulence of his tenantry, and the general 
prosperity of the country, he made the following observations, 
which spoke equally in favour of the moral and physical con- 
dition of the people : « It is impossible to foresee what may be 
the consequences of the enormous depredations committed by 
the foreign troops, when added to the losses already sustained 
by the military systems of Napoleon. The contributions already 
levied are beyond the resources of the nation ; but with respect 
to our peasantry, it is quite certain, that, besides the improve- 
ment of their general condition by the revolution, they have 
also made a provision of energy and good sense, which, 
strengthens and enlightens them to meet every attack of ad- 
versity, and which they did not possess thirty years back." 

It is, however, neither possible nor true, that, in this general 
prosperity, all are opulent in a class where so much must de- 
pend on individual exertion and peculiarity of circumstances, 
on the nature of the soil, or the character of a province. It 
would be rather a public evil than a general good, if an order 
did not exist which had only its daily industry and good-will 
to depend on : but even the least favoured among the labouring 
class feel some reflection from the prosperity that surrounds 
them. No longer " un peuple serf, corveable et tctillahle"* [« an 
enslaved people, corveable and taillable," — See corvee and 
taille,] all are alike free to offer their labour for adequate remu- 
neration ; and all now feel that this newly-possessed power of 
self-disposal is property, in itself. 

* The titles of feudality, as M. de Mably observes, are sufficient proofs of 
"l'asservissement dans lequel le despotisme des seigneurs tenoit le peuple, 
et qui les rendoit les maitres absolus de sa fortune et de ses forces," [" the 
servitude in which the despotism of the lords of the manor held the peasants, 
and which rendered them absolute masters of their powers and their fate."] 
Among these seignioral titles were the following : " Seigneur haut et puissant, 
seigneur redoute, et tres redoute," ["Seigneur high and powerful, seigneur 
awful and most awful/'] The immense surface of France must naturally pro- 
duce great variety in the characters and conditions of the people. In Bri- 
tanny they are much less civilized, and in some districts of the west and north 
much less opulent, than in the other parts of the kingdom. 



$ PEASANTRY. 

The peasantry of France may perhaps bo divided into the 
distinct classes of proprietor, farmer tenant (fermier 9 J and 
labourer. A French writer has termed the labouring class of 
a free state « la pepiniere des soldats" [« the nursery of sol- 
diers."] It was on this class that the law of military con- 
scription fell with most frequency, though not with most weight ; 
for the labouring peasant made but little sacrifice, when he 
flung away the spade for the musket, and left the track of his 
plough for the march of victory. From the ranks, however, 
so often supplied by this class of men, arose many of those 
brave commanders, who planted the eagle-standard of France 
in almost every country in Europe ; for it was a maxim with 
the chief who reigned in military supremacy over all, 

That he who doth i'th* wars 

More than his captain can, becomes 

His captain's captain. Shaxspeuie. 

INlichael Ney, a young hussar, distinguished himself, while 
yet in the ranks, by unparalleled intrepidity; and, gallantly 
fighting his way through every subaltern degree of his profes- 
sion, was presented by his colonel-general with a company, on 
the sole recommendation of his own merits. The simple hus- 
sar became in time a marshal of France: his sovereign raised 
him to the highest rank in the state, by the titles of Duke 
D'Elchingen and Prince of Moskowa ; and his country con- 
ferred on him that title, « greater than all," when, in her gra- 
titude for his services, she named him " le brave des braves" 
["the bravest of the brave."] 

The disbanding of -the veteran troops of France has obliged 
most of its subaltern members to return to the obscure labours 
of their youth; and, foregoing 

"The grappling vigour and rough frown of war," 

with minds long trained to other objects, and habits long tem- 
pered to other views, the heroes of Marengo and of Austerlitz 
again appear following the plough in their native villages, and 
are of necessity become « hewers of wood and drawers of 
water." 

I remember to have met one of these military labourers, these 
veteran " braves," who had been driven with an army almost 
frantic behind the Loire, engaged in the inglorious labours of 
the spade, and working on the estate of a soldier, who had him- 
self long since turned his « sword into a ploughshare," after 
having wielded it oidy in the service of virtue and of freedom." 

I was one morning, in the summer of 1816, walking under 



PEASANTRY. g 

the venerable towers of Chateau la Grange, and leaning on the 
arm of its illustrious master, general the marquis de la Fayette, 
(and who would not boast of being supported by that arm, which 
raised the standard of independence in America, and placed her 
banner above the dungeons of France ?) The figure of a la- 
bourer, who was working on the moat which nearly surround- 
ed the chateau, struck me as being both distinguished and sin- 
gular. He was a tall athletic man, something advanced in life. 
As we approached, he touched the little embroidered cap, which 
did not conceal his grey locks, and drawing up into an erect 
posture, gave the military salute, which M. dela Fayette. most 
punctiliously returned. As the labourer resumed his spade, I 
asked the general, in English, whether this was not one of the 
disbanded soldiers of the Loire. « I should suppose," he repli- 
ed, "a distinguished one; for I find he is a member of the le- 
gion of honour, and you may perceive the ensign of his order 
glittering through the rents in his jacket." The man raised 
his eyes to us, as we now stood beside him ; and perceiving 
that the general was looking at his work, he asked with anxie- 
ty " Vous e?i etes content, mon general, j'espere?" ["General, 
I hope you are satisfied with it ?"] « Mais oui, mon ami, parfai- 
tement, cela va Men." [«* Yes, my friend, perfectly, 'tis very well 
done"] replied the general. « Bon, bon," [»< good, good,"] return- 
ed the soldier, and resumed his labours with all the vigour of 
an able pioneer. « That brave fellow," said M. de la Fayette, 
as we pursued our walks, « has passed twenty years in the ser- 
vice of his country. He is covered with scars. He had alrea- 
dy obtained the subaltern distinctions of his profession, and in 
another year was to have been appointed a commissioned, offi- 
cer; en attendant, [in the mean time] he received the cross of 
the legion of honour, and thought himself amply recompensed 
for all his services. It was thus by a few laurel crowns, that the 
Romans became masters of the world. This disbanded veteran 
returned, a few weeks back, to his native village, which is at 
this moment visible through the trees of that dark wood : he 
offered his services to my concierge, [keeper] who accepted 
them. He labou is through the week in his tattered fustian jack- 
et, and gratifies all that is left of his military pride, by exposing 
his badge of honour to the admiration of the rustic crowd, with 
which he mingles at mass on Sundays." 
************ 

But the ranks of the labouring class are not alone filled by 
the disbanded privates of the army ; for many (and there is a 
romantic sadness in the idea), many whose brows have recent- 
ly been shaded by the "panache blanc" [« white plume"] of mili- 
tary distinctions, whose voice was law, and whose breath was 



10 PEASANTRY. 

command (now expelled to make way for " daintier captains,") 
are driven by necessity to earn their daily bread by daily la- 
bour. 

One of my gallant countrymen, attached to the English army 
now in France, was stationed with his company in a village at 
some distance from the bead-quarters : he was returning with 
his dogs, after a sporting ramble in the neighbourhood, when 
lie overtook a team, whose driver displayed a costume at once 
military and civil — his waggoner's frock contrasting with a 
large cocked hat. As they pursued the same route, the English 
officer endeavoured to enter into conversation ; but was answered 
with that brusquerie, [rudeness] which intimates impatience of 
obtrusion. A few useless questions on the state of the game in 
that country had nearly finished an intercourse so churlishly 
supported, when the waggoner, casting his eyes on the undress 
uniform of the Englishman, asked, in his turn, some questions 
as to the state of the English army, in terms sufficiently techni- 
cal to betray his experience on the subject to which he had so 
abruptly adverted. The conversation became interesting : it 
turned on the war in Spain. The Englishman alluded to the 
« hot work" of a particular day. « Were you in that engage- 
ment V 9 demanded the waggoner eagerly. 

" I was wounded in it," said the Englishman. 

H And I," said the Frenchman, « was wounded in it also." 

« I was attached to such a division." 

4S I commanded the battalion opposed to that division." 

« I am addressing an officer of the French army then ?" said 
Captain ***, moving his hat. 

" I had once that honour," answered the Frenchman, return- 
ing the bow ; then after a moment given to dejected thought- 
fulness, he rallied from his abstraction, wished his companion 
a good morning, and springing on the seat of his waggon, cri- 
ed, « Vif, vjjy* [« quick, quick, 1 '] to his horses and drove ra- 
pidly on. When captain *** reached his village inn, he per- 
ceived his military acquaintance leading out his horse to water. 
He enquired of the uubergiste, [landlord.] who he was : « M 
pour celui-UiS 9 replied the innkeeper, *• e'est un dc vos licencies, 

e'est le capitaiue dc li , un brave homme! cent grand dom- 

mage .' mats voild comme xoni les choses dans notre panrrc France. 
Cependant, diable! que voulez-rous ?"# [♦« Ah! as to him, lie is 

* Vne quantity prodigieuse d'efficiera sans moyenssont renvoyea do service, 
et mis a la demi-aplde; tan lis qu'on forme des corps entiers deajeum 
a peine echappes du college. Cea jeunea gens, commandes p;\r des vieflarda 

how d'etat dc supporter lea fatigues militaircs, sont instilula poor remplaeer 
Cctte terrible garde imperiale, qui toujours dans la bataille decula la vi< 

Mxaincnrabiilc dugouvtrneinaU des Bourbons. 



PEASANTRY. £g 

one of our disbanded officers ; it is captain B— — , a brave 
man ! 'tis a great pity ! — but this is the way things are going 
on in our poor France. However, what would you have ?"] 

The agricultural surface of France is divided into what is 
called, in the language of the country, " le pays de grande, etde 
petite culture.'' 9 In the former, the size of the farms has been 
little affected by the revolution : the only difference that has 
occurred is, that several farms belonging to one landlord may 
have been purchased by the farmers who formerly cultivated 
them, or by a small proprietor, whose exertions are confined to 
the ground he has bought. The possession of small plots of 
ground by the day-labourers has .become very frequent ; and it 
is sometimes usual in these countries to let them to the great 
fanners who are desirous of having them, to complete the quan- 
tity of land which the size of their establishment demands. 

The pays de petite culture is composed of small farms, for the 
cultivation of which the landlord finds the tenant in horses and 
ploughs, and divides with him the profits. Upon the large 
farms the condition of the tenant is very much like that of our 
own English farmers; and in the pays de petite culture there 
exists a race, long disappeared from England, of poor but in- 
dependent yeomen, who rear their families in a degree of com- 
fort as perfect, as it is remote from luxury. The dwelling of 
a French farmer presents the same scene of rural bustle, activi- 
ty, and industry, as is usually found in the English farm-house. 
The women always appear full of occupation and energy, and 
share in common with their husbands, fathers, and brothers* 
the toil and anxiety of their condition.* 

While we were on a visit in the canton of La Beauce, at the 
chateau D'Orsonville, the seat of the marquis and marquise de 
Colbert Chabanais (and it is a delightful link in the chain of 
association, which leads me back to days so happily passed,} 
we accompanied la belle chatelaine, the lady of the castle, on a 
visit to a rural bride, the wife of one of their farmer-tenants. 

[An immense number of officers without means of support are dismissed from 
the service and put on half-pay; v^hile new corps are formed, entirely of 
young people who have scarcely left college. These youths, commanded by 
old men who are no longer capable of supporting the fatigue of military duty, 
are instituted in place of that tremendous imperial guard, which in the day of 
battle always decided the victory. 

Cursory examination of tlui government of the Bourbons.] 

* " C'est un avantage multiplie partout, depuis la revolution," said a French 
farmer to us, speaking of the improved state of the labourers; " que les do- 
mestiques des fermes et les journaliers pcsseder.t une maison et quelques 
morceaux de terre, en addition aux gages." 

[" It is an advantage multiplied every where, since the revolution, that the 
servants of the farms and the day-labourers possess a house and a piece ©f 
ground, in addition to their wages."] 



j£ PEASAlKfTRY, 

We found her already deeply engaged in all the hustle of house- 
wifery, standing in the midst of a pile of brown loaves, which 
she was preparing for the labourers. 

« Vous voila deja occupee du menage, ma bonne Madelaine, 9 ' 
[" You are already occupied with the houshold affairs, my good 
Madelaine,"] said marquise de Colbert, as we entered. 

« Eh I mais, mon Dien, oui 9 Madame, pourquoi pas ?" [" Oh ! 
yes, madam — why not?") replied Madelaine, shaking the flour 

from what Madame de C called « sonlnxe dejupe" — [«* her 

luxury of petticoat,"] the superfluous quantity of her well-plaited 
cloth petticoat well meriting the epithet. Madelaine then, with 
evident pride in her newly acquired opulence, did the honours 
of her house, by requesting us to walk into the grande chambre, 
or best parlour, and to leave « la maison, 99 * as she called the 
kitchen, or place of general reception ; where an immense 
marrnite, bubbling over the wood fire, sent forth the fume of 
the savoury ragout preparing for the family supper. 

La grande chambre exhibited one of those excessively high 
and excellent beds, which it is the ambition of every French 
peasant to possess ; and its old brocaded hangings seemed to 
boast a nobler origin, than the fresh and snowy counterpane 
which accompanied them. An armoire, [clothes-press] antece- 
dent (by its structure) to the days of Boule, held the bridal 
wardrobe, or rustic trousseau,] Madelaine drew our attention 
also to the high chimney-piece, where ticked a handsome pen- 
dule, in order to point out to us her taste and her piety, exhibit- 
ed in a piece of ornamental wax-work, representing two young 
lovers burning in red worsted flames, fond and devoted as the 
death-enamoured martyrs of M. Chateaubriand; « Ah, qu'ellc 
est gentile ! n'est-ce pas, Mesdames ? — c'est vraiement uiie coeffurc 
charmante/ 99 [" All ! how pretty she is: is not she ladies: — 
her head is really charming!"] There was in this dwelling of 
the farmer:): every appearance of competency and comfort; 
and though it wanted those finishing touches of neatness to be 
fouYid in an English farm-house, there was no absence of ac- 
commodation. Good beds, stout furniture, well-sashed win- 
dows, and spacious hearths, secured to its inhabitants all the 
prime necessaries of an habitual dwelling, which was never to 
be exchanged for the chilling misery of a parish poor-house ; 

* It is customary, in many parts of England, to call this part of a farmer's 
cottage " the house." 

-j- " Trousseau," a portion of house-linen and clothes, which brides of all 
ranks in France bring- as a dowry. 

+ 1 instance this farm-honsc in La Beaucc, as a fair sample of the many farm- 
houses we visited in France, in Normandy I saw many superior. In Ficcardy 
nnd Artois they were in general inferior. 



PEASANTRY. ±% 

except, indeed, a new order of things should provide such am 
asylum against that indigence, which the increased taxation, 
and contributions levied on the savings of industry, for the 
maintenance of foreign troops, may draw down upon the pros- 
perous peasantry of the land at some future day. 

In the course of a morning's walk in the neighbourhood of 
the chateau D'Orsonville, a sudden shower of rain obliged u» 
to take shelter in the cottage of a. fermier. We found two young 
women busied in folding up linen of an excellent quality and 
colour ; and when we had reckoned twelve pair of sheets, we 
could not help observing they were rich in house linen. « Mais 
ee n'est rien, cela" [« But this is. nothing,'*] replied one of the 
girls, and took some pains to convince us that what we saw 
would go but a very short way in providing beds for the la- 
bourers in harvest time. Mentioning this circumstance to 

Monsieur de C at dinner that day, he assured me that it 

was not unusual for a fermier to have one hundred and fifty 
pair of sheets for the use of his family ; for that in general, 
the French farmers were sufficiently opulent to indulge in a 
luxury, indispensable in France among all classes, good linen 
and good beds. Among his own tenantry, he added, there were 
some who were supposed to be worth two or three thousand 
pounds, English money ; and that a few days before, one of 
his fermiers had given a portion of a thousand Napoleons with 
his daughter in marriage. 

Such is the condition of these small proprietors of lands, 
of which their fathers were considered the live stock, when 
« nulle tare, sans seigneur" [" no land without a lord,"] was 
the maxim of the times. 

*********** 

There is something exquisitely gracious in the contempla- 
tion of that state of tilings, that true golden age of a country, 
M where every rood of ground maintains its man," and « les 
petits propriites," [« the little freeholds"] of France enjoyed 
by the most numerous class of the peasantry, whether purchas- 
ed by the savings of the fermier or vigneroiu [farmer or vine- 
dresser,] or whether obtained in the early part of the Revolu- 
tion from the sale of the national domains, present a state of 
rural independence, extremely favourable to the views, and 
highly gratifying to the feelings of philanthropy. 

We were travelling to the chateau of one of our hospitahle 
French friends, v. hen an accident, which happened to our car- 
riage, obliged us to stop for an hour in the little village, which 
stands at the entrance of the valley Dorsai. We resolved to 
turn our misadventure to ac6ount, by visiting the chateau of 



|4 PEASANTRY. 

the celebrated Madame Cottin, which, we understood, was but 
at a walking distance. She, indeed, was no more ! But the 
dwelling which has once been consecrated by the residence of 
Genius (be it palace, or hovel,) is a shrine to which the mind 
and imagination naturally turn with pilgrim devotion; and the 
valley of Dorsai, amidst whose shades the character of Malek 
Adel was created, will long preserve an interest, independent 
of its own loveliness and romantic beauty. 

Having ordered "une petite collation" [« a little collation"] 
(as the aubergiste [landlord] called a fillet of veal roasting at 
the fire for the breakfast of accidental travellers,) we walked 
down towards the valley. Our steps were soon arrested by the 
appearance of a very handsome chateau, which hung over a 
pretty river, and which, as a large placard informed us, was 
« en vente" [« for sale."] We asked a young peasant (who 
was eating his goule [luncheon] of raw artichokes and bread 
and butter at the gates) who had been its late owner. He an- 
swered, 8 Le Marechal Arrighi, the cousin of the Emperor, 
now an exile " and the chateau and grounds were to be sold 
immediately. He could give us no further information, and 
we proceeded on our ramble. The sultriness of the weather 
had produced an insupportable thirst, which trees bowed down 
with fruit on every side tempted us to allay : but as this is a 
depredation rarely committed in France, and as property of 
this description is held sacred, in proportion as it lies exposed,. 
we thought it wisest to offer ourselves as purchasers of the 
« golden produce" of a verger, [orchard,] which nearly sur- 
rounded a very neat cottage by the path-way side we had ac- 
cidentally pursued. 

To the threshold of a French cottage there is no barrier : 
it is entered not, indeed, without ceremony, for there are cer- 
tain forms of courtesy never dispensed with in France by any 
rank ; but it is entered by the stranger, as by the "neighbour, 
without hesitation, in the certainty of a civil, if not of a cor- 
dial reception. 

We found the interior of the cottage infinitely superior to its 
external appearance : a clean and lofty bed occupied a little 
alcove in the outside room ; some articles of old china orna- 
mented one shelf, and a few books another; while the "pot an 
feu" [" cooking-pot' 1 ] was bubbling over a clear fire under the 
special superintendence of an aged dame, who received us very 
good humoredly. To our question, whether we could get any 
fruit to purchase, she replied <« mais tres volontiers — taiez;'* 
[« yes, willingly — come' 1 ] — and she hobbled to a little door 
which opened into a very small farm yard, where a cow, a 
mule, and a pig, were lying amicably together under a sort of 



PEASANTRY. |g 

shed, on which some flax lay drying in the sun—" tent% Mon- 
sieur, et Madame !" [*•' see, Monsieur, and Madame !"] — « You 
will have the goodness to cross that little basse cour, [yard,] 
you will then find yourselves in the verger, [orchard,] where 
my son-in-law and pay daughter will have the honour to receive 
your commands : they are both at work there." We found th* 
daughter (a middle-aged woman) at her distaff, under a tret 
laden with green-gages, of which she gave us the plunder for 
the sum of six sous (three pence,) exhorting us to fill our hand- 
kerchiefs, with repeated « prenez-en done, ne vous genex> pas?* 
[«< take more, do not stint yourselves T'] 

We observed that the little domain of which she was mistress 
was composed of a potager, [kitchen garden] a vineyard, and a 
quantity of fruit trees and flowers. It was a delicious spot, and 
placed in a most delicious situation. We asked her, by what 
tenure her husband held it. She replied with vivacity, " mais 
e'est a nous ; e'est un petit propnete ; tene%, void, noire man — il 
tous racontera iGiit cp, 9 " [•< it is ours : it is our own little proper- 
ty ; see, here is our husband — he will tell you all about it."'] 

« Notre Mari" ["our husband"] was a tall robust well-looking 
man. He approached us with a low bow, and a spade over his 
shoulder. To our questions, repeated by his wife, he replied 
with the intelligence and frankness peculiar to the lower clas- 
ses of France. 

This little estate of a few " arpens de ierre" [« acres of 
ground"] had been obtained by his father, on the sale of the na- 
tional domains.^ He had himself served in all the wars of the 
republic, and under the Emperor ; but on the death of his fa- 
ther he had left the army, and took possession of his little pat- 
rimony, for he had no brothers or sisters to divid? it with, ac- 
cording to the new law of succession.! He said their chief 
means of subsistence arose from the cultivation of their vines, 
which enabled them to have « nn morceau de cochonnaille dans le 
pot, et nn pen de vin dans le petit caveau ;" [« a bit of bacon itt 
the pot, and a little wine in the cellar] but he added, it requir- 
ed great industry to render their vines productive, during a six 
months' constant cultivation ; and that he had little hopes of 
deriving much profit from this year, on account of the unparal- 

* Before the revolution, the peasant, who was not oppressed by feudal ten- 
ures, and whoever could save by his earnings from the rapacity of taxation a 
little sum, raised himself tc the dignity of a small proprietor. The pride winch 
this singular and rare independence awakened was so great, that the dying fa- 
ther sometimes divided the proprietorship of a single apple-tree among hi? 
sons. — On this subject, see You?ig , s Travels into France. 

f There is no primogeniture in France : all property is now equally divi- 
ded among the children. 



46 PEASANTRY. 

leled humidity of the season. " But what was a bad season," 
he added, " to the depredation committed by foreign troops ?— 
Sacre" and he ground his teeth, " les coquins de Prussiens ;" 
[" those scoundrels the Prussians"] they drank up all the wine 
wherever they found it. We asked him whether, in some re- 
spects, the conduct of the Prussians was not a war of reprisals. 

" Comment done?" ["What.?"] lie replied, almost jumping with 
a sudden fit of passion, whichMris wife endeavored to reprove 
with «mais quelle vivacite, mon ami /" [« but what vivacity, my 
friend !"] 

« Comment done ! une guerre de represailles ?" [« What ! a 
war of reprisals ?"] The Prussians were the first aggressors : — 
*<pourquoi se meter de nos affaires, dans le terns de la revolution ? 
sacre /" [why did they meddle with our affairs at the time of the 
revolution ?"] « But that is an affaire Jinie ! they came as the 
allies of our king, as our friends ; and they plundered, they ra- 
vaged, they destroyed. Jllle-z, monsieur, allez dans la Perche, 
[Go, sir, go to la Perche] go to la Perche, to Sevres,* to St. 
Cloud, hear what husbands and fathers have to say there ! — 
M, seigneur Dieu J celafait dresser les cheveux sur la tete / cela 
fait fremir /" [Ah, it will make your hair stand on end ! it will 
make you shudder !] 

I observed, that, as a soldier, he must be aware that such hor- 
rors were the natural consequences of war, under whatever co- 
lours it was carried on. "Si fait? [» Yes"] he replied petulantly, 
"pour la guerre ouverte, cela s'ententie ; mats nos amis, les allies, 
madame, voild notre refrain /" {" in open war. that is understood ; 
but our friends, the allies, madamc, that is the burden of our 
song "] On this subject it seems, indeed, to be the refrain of 
the nation. 

Oh, in those moments of desolation and carnage, when for- 
eign armies, under the white standard of peace and of the Bour- 
bons, ravaged the fertile plains and vine-covered hills of 
France; — when the nation saw itself the victim of that force, 
which approached its frontiers under the guise of amity — was 
there no royal arm to rush between the sword of the foreigner 
and the life of the subject? Was there no royal voice to raise 
its cry of protection, and, like the founder of the Bourbon dy- 
nasty, shout along the charging line, « Sauvez mes Francois? 9 ' 
[« save my Frenchmen."] 

There is scarcely any transition more instantaneous than 
the extremes of cholerand good-humour in an irritated French- 
man. The subject of our conversation had thrown all the 
angry elements of our military proprietor into activity. A few 

* A gentleman, whose estates lie in la Perche, assured me that the peasant- 
ry were with difficulty prevented from rising- en masse against the Prussians. 



PEASANTRY. ^y 

complimentary phrases on the beauty of his little domain, and 
the probable happiness of his simple and industrious life, 
brought back all the gaiety, mildness, and urbanity of the 
French character. He bowed and smiled, and said he had no 
reason to complain of his lot ; that if things would go on as they 
had done, all would be well. He said he knew us at once to be 
" des Anglais 9 par notre toumure ;" [«• English, by our air ;"] and 
added, the English troops had shown great discipline, and be- 
haved with much more moderation, than any other of the fo- 
reign armies. 

Although he talked with singular intelligence on the actual 
agricultural state of the canton he inhabited, he was less alive 
to its literary interests ; for of the celebrated Madame de Cottin 
he had never heard, nor knew any lady «« qui travailla beaucoup," 
(wrote much) who had ever possessed a chateau in the Vailee 
D'Orsai, We mentioned the circumstance of her unfortunate 
kinsman and lover having shot himself in the grounds of her 
chateau, as an event likely to have attracted rustic attention: 
"Eh/ mais mon Dieu, out!" <*[Eh! my God, yes! I remember 
that !"] replied his wife, **.jt me rappelle de cela," and she point- 
ed out to us a chateau in the distance, where a gentleman shot 
himself in consequence of suspecting the attachment of his wife 
for his own particular friend. For this information she was, 
I thought, reproved by her husband with a delicacy rather be- 
yond the ordinary tone of rustic feeling : « Mafemme, c'est in- 
eoncevable, tu vas /aire courir une histoire comme cela : une af- 
faire defamille I fi done, qiCest-ce que ca te regarde ?" [« Wife, 1 
am surprized, that you will give circulation to a story like 
that ! a family affair ! fie, what concern is it of yours ?"] 

The wife stood abashed; and the chateau of the suicide hus- 
band not being the chateau we sought, we were obliged to re- 
turn to our inn in the village, much pleased with having thus 
accidentally lighted on one of those little proprietors, whose 
means of subsistence and happy independence lie within the 
compass of a few roods cultivated by their own hands, and 
whose condition has arisen out of the fermentation of revolu- 
tionary conflict. — "Misery/' said a French gentleman to me, 
speaking of the severity of the season, and the depredation of 
the troops, « misery already attacks us, and presents a pros- 
pect of its increase, by the four years' contributions we have 
yet to pay you ;" mais encore elle rtattemt presque pas P habi- 
tant de campagne, qui est generalement devenu proprietcdre. [but 
yet it scarcely reaches the country people, who have generally 
become proprietors.] 

*********** 

When the late Emperor of France returned to his palace of 

D 



1£ PEASANTRY. 

the Bourbon Elysee, immediately after his defeat at Waterloo, 
he continued many hours without taking any refreshment. One 
of the grooms of the chamber ventured to serve up some « gelee 
de bouillon," [" soup-jelly,"] and some coffee, in his cabinet, by 
the hands of a child, a sort of page, whom Napoleon had occa- 
sionally distinguished by his notice. The Emperor sat mo- 
tionless, with his hands spread upon his eyes. The child stood 
patiently before him, gazing with infantine curiosity on an 
image, which presented so strong a contrast to his own figure 
of simplicity and peace; at last the little attendant, presenting 
his tray, exclaimed, in the familiarity of an age which knows 
so little distinctions, « Mmige%-en, Sire, cela vousfera du Men?" 
[« Eat some, Sire, it will do you good/'] The Emperor looked 
at him, and asked, « N 9 est-tu pas de Genesse?" ["Are you not 
from Genesse ?"] (a village near Paris). « JVbro, Sire, je mis 
de Pierre-fite." [" No, Sire, I come from Pierre-fite."] " Oil 
tes parens out une chaumiere, et quelques arpens de terre ?" [«« Where 
your parents have a cottage and a few acres of land ?"] " Oui, 
Sire." ["Yes, Sire."] « Voild lebonheurl" ["There then, is 
happiness !"] replied the man who was still, even then, Empe- 
ror of the French, and king of Italy. * 

*■*##■*##*#** 

Turgot, whose profound genius extended to every branch of 
human knowledge, who, at the head of a ministry, promulgat- 
ed the principles of a philosopher, and said, "Lei mankind 
be free, and let each country enjoy the peculiar advantages be- 
stowed on her by nature." — Turgot encouraged agriculture, as 
the best means of ensuring the prosperity of France ; and 
brought to the aid and developement of his great views all that 
France then boasted of genius and acquirement. But while it 
was the glory of the unfortunate Lewis XVI. to have raised 
such a man to the ministry, it was his weakness and his mis- 
fortune to have sacrificed him to the intrigues of that self in- 
terested and privileged class, which hurried on alike the ruin 
of the sovereign ami of the state; and the enlarged views of 
this great man for the agricultural prosperity of the land re- 
mained unaccomplished. But though France is still considered 
as far behind England in a science, on which her prosperity 
peculiarly depends, (yet in the words of a professed farmer and 
great landed proprietor) « Lepeuple s'est eclairesurles principes 
de V agriculture ; legout de la campagne s^est rani me ; et Pactvvite 
de Vespril s'est portee vers les ameliorations agricoles." [*« The 
people are enlightened on the principles of agriculture; a taste 

* This little anecdote is 'copied from a journal, supposed to be written by 
one of Napoleon's secretaries, called w JVJrff« deV Abdication" ["Nights of the 
Abdication."] 



PEASANTRY. ±L) 

far the country has revived ; and the activity of the mind tends 
strongly towards agricultural improvements."] 

There is in the moving scenery of pastoral life something 
peculiarly cheering and picturesque; and though every country 
must devote itself to those pursuits, which are most adapted to 
its natural advantages, yet the pastoral country will ever pre- 
sent to the heart of the philanthropist images infinitely more 
consonant to its feelings, than can be supplied by the details of 
commerce and manufacture. From the meagre and squalid po- 
pulation which swarm amidst the noxious vapours of the mine, 
or decay in the confinement of unwholesome manufactories, ex- 
isting between the extremes of want and intemperance, and 
alike morally and physically debased, the feelings turn with 
disgust and commiseration ; while it is impossible not to envy a 
country whose population is invited, by a bounteous and prodi- 
gal soil, to devote its energies to the service of nature, even 
though that country be less great, less opulent, than our own. 
It is impossible to travel any distance in France, without being 
struck with the picturesque scenes which continually present 
themselves. In the south, and among the heights called "les 
yetites Mpcs" between Lyons and Geneva, a family of two or 
three generations may frequently be seen issuing forth from 
the cottage of the patriarchal sire, with the first rays of the 
morning; — the old dames, to cull the grasses and nutritive 
herbs for their cows; the younger ones, to share the labours of 
the field or vineyard, with their brothers, husbands, or lovers, 
under the watchful eye of the guardian father; while the boys 
and girls lead forth their sheep from the nightly fold, and the 
younger urchins take the reins of government over large flocks 
of turkeys, and rule the politics of the poultry yard, with well- 
sustained authority. 

In the course of our several little journies from our head- 
quarters at Paris, we frequently stopped to talk to the shep- 
herds who present themselves by the roadside, to salute travel- 
lers as they pass, and whom we found useful to our course 
through those miserable cross roads, which usually lead to the 
gentilhommiere, or chateau, buried deep in some sequestered 
copse, and accessible only by paths, narrow and difficult as 
those to heaven. 

The modern French shepherd, more characterised by the 
grotesque than the picturesque, has nothing in his appearance 
of the « bergerie sentimenfale" [« pastoral sentimental"] repre- 
sented in the landscapes of Louis XlVth's day no crook 

wreathed with flowers, nor jacket coulcur de rose; [colour of 
the rose] but his large straw hat, which shades out the sun ; — 
his stout frieze coat, which preserves him against the cold ; his 



20 PEASANTRY. 

leathern belt, long staff, and scrip, seem all well suited to meet 
the necessities of his condition ; while his little portable habi- 
tation, which he wheels about from scite to scite, as the wind 
blows or the sun shines, and his faithful dog, with the merry, 
though not very musical tone of his sheep-bells, complete a pic- 
ture not without its merits, even to the eye of an artist or a 
poet. Speaking in a jargon not always very easily understood, 
he never fails, when addressed, « d' avoir Phonneur de vous sa- 
luer," [« to have the honour of saluting you"] or « de souhai- 
ter," (with a low bow) <* bon voyage a madame et monsieur" — ■ 
[«* or wishing a good journey to monsieur and madame."] Fre- 
quently they followed us to repeat their instructions relative to 
"les medians chemins" [« vile roads"] we had to encounter ; — 
and they always exhibited in their manner the kindness of na- 
ture, mixed with the courtesy of civilization. 

It is a singular circumstance, that the little proprietors of a 
few arpens de terre [acres of land] do not even yet cultivate pas- 
turage for their cows ; and this negligence, this remnant of their 
ancient bad system of farming, peoples the walks and fields on 
Sundays and holidays with groups of girls and women, employ- 
ed in cutting grasses, with which they fill the little baskets* 
hanging on their arms. It is thus a weekly provision is made for 
the cow, which is but occasionally released from its confine- 
ment, and permitted to range the field, under the guidance of a 
boy or girl leading it by a rope. Every peasant has some lit- 
tle live stock ; few are without a cow, and to it are usually add- 
ed a pig, mule, or ass, according to the circumstances of the 
proprietor. There are, of course, many among these small 
farmers and owners of « petits proprietes" [« little estates' 1 ] who 
have not enough land to find entire occupation for a plough and 
team; and an arrangement is often made among a little knot 
of neighbours, to maintain among them the plough as common 
property, while each supplies a horse or mule for the general 
service. Thus the same attelage, [harness] answers the purpo- 
ses of all. It sometimes, however, happens that among these 
independent lords of an acre, some are so little favoured by for- 
tune, as to be unable to join even these small and accommoda- 
ting agricultural firms ; and then the proprietor is seen trailing 
a sort of ploughing machine, resembling a harrow, over his 
small territory, with the aid of one poor donkey, the scrub of 
the farm. Still, however, this man is an independent proprie- 
tor. The little spot of earth he labours is his own : the por- 
tion of grain he sows he will reap : his children will eat of the 
fruit of the tree his hand has planted : and while this modicum 
of land preserves him and his family in independence, while 
every particle of the soil is turned to its utmost account, and 



PEASANTRY. 



21 



yields triple produce from what it formerly did, in less inte- 
rested hands, the frugal savings of laborious industry do not g© 
to feed the rapacity of the tythe-proctor, to meet the vexatious 
call of rack-rents, or to pay for air and light, the inheritance 
of the « very commoners of nature." The French peasant has 
not to encounter any one of the many evils that press upon the 
neck of the Irish peasantry, and the imposts which rendered un- 
availing the industry of his fathers, the corvee, [the statute la- 
bour] the gabelle, [the excise upon salt] the taille, [the land tax] 
now scare him no longer, even in his dreams. His time, his 
labour, are his own \ and the spot to which he devotes them is a 
land of promise, to which the light of liberty first directed 
him. 

But beside the vineyard or the field, there is another branch 
of industry and profit in their rural economy, which engrosses 
much of their attention, and contributes infinitely to their amuse- 
ment and gratification — a garden ! Every French peasant has 
a garden. It is an arrangement both of necessity and of en- 
joyment, with which they never dispense. 

There was a day in France, when flowers seemed only to 
breathe their odours for noble senses, or to expand their beau- 
ties to carpet the steps of royalty : the road was strewed with 
jonquils, over which Louis XIV. passed, on his celebrated visit 
to Chantilly 5* and Madame de Montespan hid out the unseem- 
ly earth, which nourished her orange groves at her « Jlrmida 
palace" of Clugny, with the rarest plants. The finest flowers In 
France are now to be found in the peasants' gardens — the native 
rose de Provence, the stranger rose of India, entwine- their blos- 
soms and grow together amidst the rich foliage of the vine, 
which scales the gable, and creeps along the roof of the cottage. 
I have seen a French peasant as proud of his tulips, as any 
stockjobber-florist of Amsterdam; and heard him talk of hiV 
carnations, as if he had been the sole possessor of the "semper 
augustus." Oh ! when shall I behold, near the peasant's 
hovel in my own country, other flowers than the bearded this- 
tie, which there waves its "lonely head," and scatters its down 
upon every passing blast ; or the scentless shamrock, the un- 
profitable blossom of the soil, which creeps to be trodden upon, 
and is gathered only to be plunged in the inebriating draught, 

* Le roi y doitaller le 24me. de ce mois ,- il y sera un jour entier — -jamais i'l 
ne s'est fait tant de depense au triomphe des empereurs, quil y en aura la. II 
y aura pour mille ecus de jonqullles. Jugez a proportion. — Letires de Sevignc, 
vol. i. 

[The king will go there the twenty -fourth of this month ; he will stay a 
whole day — the expense will be greater than that at the triumph of a Roman 
emperor — There will be a thousand crowns worth of jonquils— judge in pro- 
portion. — SeyignPs Letters.] 



gra PEASANTRY. 

commemorating annually the fatal illusions of the people, and 
drowning in the same tide of madness their emblems and their 
wrongs.* 

Flowers are not only a luxury to the French peasant : they 
are a commodity of profit: they supply the markets of all the 
towns in France: and every British traveller is aware what a 
profusion of violets and lilies of the valley are obtained for a 
few sous at every village ; and what pretty bouquets [nosegays] 
are tossed into the carriage windows, as it rolls rapidly on, at 
the risk of not being paid for, while the little priestesses of 
Flora offer their gratuitous prayer of " bon voyage," [" a good 
journey."] Flowers, indeed, seem an universal passion of the 
nation : and the pretty village of Fontenay-aux-roses derives 
its name from its abundant produce of « the queen of flowers," 
and from its ancient privilege of furnishing roses to the court 
and the parliament ; for, under the old regime, in the month 
of May, <« en plein parlement," [« in full parliament,"] each 
peer and magistrate received in his turn a bouquet of roses. 
But "Fontenay-aux-roses" possesses a celebrity beyond what 
its flowers bestow. It was here, in the pretty maison de plais- 

ance [little villa] of Mr. S , that the illustrious and 

unfortunate Condorcet took shelter a short time before his 
death. Fearing, however, to risk the safety of his friend, the 
unhappy victim of a sanguinary democracy again commenced 
his perilous wanderings; was observed, seized, swallowed poi- 
son, and died in a ditch,| on the road which leads from Fon- 
tenay to Paris. 

Notwithstanding the quantity of vegetables raised in the 
verger, [orchard,] the consumption of this article is so consi- 
derable in ever} family, that the good dame who loads her mule 
or ass with panniers of cheese or butter for the market, gene- 
rally brings them back filled with « des legumes" [« greens, 
roots"] for the table. Another source of industry and profit to 
the peasantry is the bee-hive. Honey is much used in France : 
and this branch of rural economy is cultivated to a great ex- 
tent ; and in the Ortcanois, with a peculiar ingenuity worth re- 
cording. When " the flowers hang down their heads to die," 

* It is an annual custom in Ireland to drown the Shamrock in whiskey, on St. ■ 
Patrick's-day, a festival commemorated by every species of barbarous revelry. 

-j- Having wandered for a considerable time in the woods, the exhaustion of 
hunger and fatigue urged him to seek refreshment in a little cabaret, [tavern,] 
by the road side. Forgetful of his disguise, and assumed character of a livery 
servant, while his omelette was in preparation, he took from his pocket an Ho- 
race, and began to read. This circumstance exciting suspicion, he was imme- 
diately arrested. Condorcet, as Voltaire has testified, was a man of the high- 
est powers: and the purity of his views and the elevation of his character are 
still attested by all that is' liberal in Fiance. 



PEASANTRY. ^3 

and their honied essence has be<?n completely rifled by these 
little brigands, [thieves] of nature, the hive is carefully wrapped 
up in linen clothes, and the whole busy state is thus transport- 
ed to the confines of the noble forest of Orleans, where the 
morning sun, and the luxuriant blossoms of the wild heath, pe- 
culiarly fine in that district, open a new source of waijs and 
means to some noisy, bustling, little Chancellor of the Exche- 
quer, who, having run through the whole string of usual expe- 
diency, avails himself of the supplies, which others have acci- 
dently presented, and prides himself on results, for which he 
had made no provision. On the banks of the Loire also, this 
transplantation of old dynasties into the refreshing regions of 
new realms, is frequently effected with great success, by a simi- 
lar process. 

The condition of almost every peasant permitting him to 
carry on a little pastoral commerce with the great town of his 
commune, from some one branch or other of his rural economy, 
there are few scenes more cheering or animated than that pre- 
sented along the noble roads that lead to the great towns, on a 
market day. Such a scene I witnessed on an early spring 
morning, in passing between the little village of Samer (where 
we had slept, and which we found garrisoned with British 
troops) to Montreuil, to which the sentimental topography of 
Sterne has given a distinction far beyond what he himself 
ascribes to it, in the map of France.^ 

A champaign country is always favourable to pastoral group- 
ings : that before us was such as Gainsborough would have se- 
lected for one of his charming landscapes. The silvery hue of 
the atmosphere, which characterizes the morning light of an 
early spring day, harmonized with the light handling of the 
trees just bursting into foliage, and among the rural multitude 
which moved along the road towards the same point, there were 
many forms marked by that elegant rusticity and historic cha- 
racter, attributed to the figures of Poussin, and which gave his 
landscapes much interest ; while the strength and grotesque 
rudeness of others presented the humourous originals of the 
Flemish school in all their breadth and coarseness. Boys and 
girls, with that graceful lightness and flexibility of figure and 
motion peculiar to the French youth, skipped along the road 
side ; others carefully led on the mule or ass, on which their 
grandmother, poised between her panniers, displayed all the 
finery of her «* habit de fete.'' 9 [<•' holiday-clothes."] The old 
men, with long staffs and immense cocked hats, walked stout- 

* " There's not a town in all France, which, in my opinion, looks better in 
the map than Montreuil," &c. — Tristram Shandy, rol. iii. 



£4 PEASANTRY. 

ly on 9 and led or drove the teams, carts, and waggons, whicb 
filled the road on every side. All was sound, and motion, and 
bustle, and business ; and the bells fastened to the showy worst- 
ed head-pieces of the mules and horses kept merry time to the 
whole animated scene ; while baskets of violets and lily of the 
valley, on their way to the market of Montreuil, perfumed the 
air with all the odour of a full-blown summer. 

I know not what motive, for it certainly could not be com- 
passion, had induced the sturdy driver of one of the many open 
charettes, [carts,] which for a time kept pace with our carriage, 
to admit into his rustic vehicle, along with his dame and de- 
moiselles, two or three British soldiers: but the combination 
and contrast of this group was admirable. The military uni- 
form, the military air, the English physiognomy, with a cer- 
tain mechanical immobility of the well-drilled countenances 
(which had so long obeyed the command of «.« Eyes right," and 
« Eyes left," that every feature had been disciplined by beat of 
drum,) presented the strongest contrast to the figures and faces 
of their companions ; whose ever-shifting expression almost dis- 
torted intelligence to grimace, and whose violence of gesture 
received relief from the automaton-movements of their military 
companions. A cold, solemn-looking English sergeant was 
giving a sort of lethargized attention (while he smoaked a long 
German pipe) to the details which the elder dame was com- 
municating, unconscious, perhaps, that he did not understand 
I a word that she uttered : while a spruce Irish corporal, who 
assured us, when we spoke to him at the barrier of Montreuil, 
that he felt « quite agreeable in France" was endeavouring to 
make himself so to a round-faced black-eyed little demoiselle, 
who sat beside him, and who was running over the little coquette - 
ries, in a language which nature has rendered a mother-tongue 
all the world over ; a tongue which Pat, whatever may have 
been his deficiency in the language of the country, seemed per- 
fectly to understand. 

In this singular and intimate association of the natives of 
two countries, so long opposed by 

" Contumelious, beastly, mad-braiivd war," 

there w r as something extremely gracious to the feelings ; and 
the horrible and sanguinary details which filled up the interval 
from the moment the British troops first entered France, were 
all forgotten in the contemplation of this little scene of recipro- 
cal good-will. The English soldier no longer tracked his pro- 
gress with blood, nor carried desolation to the hearth of the 
French peasant : the French peasant no longer lied in fear, 
nor execrated in indignation the <« armipotent soldier" of a ri- 



PEASANTRY. ^j 

val country. Oh, why should nations, so closely associated by 
natural position, be ever opposed in sanguinary conflict; and, 
assisting the wild ambition of their rulers, discover too late 
that they are but the dupes of their own national prejudice, the 
victims of a policy which works on them for its own views ! 

I fear, however, that this little scene was rather a rare than 
a just sample of the intercourse and confidence, which subsist 
between the peasant class of France and their allied conquerors. 
Whatever public spirit is to be found in France, must not be 
sought for in her capital, but in her provinces ; and a peasan- 
try whose substance is hourly drained by contributions and 
taxation, cannot be expected to look with much confidence and 
good-will on those, who have been the cause of these multiplied 
evils. 

A few miles from Montreuil our postilion stopped his horses, 
and turning back his head, asked, with a grin of intreaty, 
« Monsieur, permettra-t-il a Madame de monter derriere la voi- 
hire?" [f«Will Monsieur permit Madame to get up behind the 
carriage ?"] and he pointed to a smart girl, who had run pant- 
ing beside our caleche [chariot] for some paces. Madame thank- 
ed us with a low curtsey for our permission, and thanked us 
again when she alighted at the barrier of Montreuil. We en- 
tered into conversation, while the commissaire was looking at 
our passport. She was an inhabitant of Samer. I asked her 
whether the English troops did not make her little town very 
gay ? « Men le contraire," [« quite the contrary,"] she answer- 
ed, with a significant shake of her head ; « c'est d'une tristesse 
a /aire mourir;" [•< we are dying with dullness,"] for there were 
no " bah bourgeois " [« citizens balls."] I enquired the reason. 
<« Olu par exemple, les honnetes Jilles n'aiment pas se presenter 
devant les militaires etrangers," ["Oh ! because the respectable 
girls do not like to shew themselves to the strange soldiers."] 
For this piece of village prudery, however, she would assign 
no reason but « eh ! mats, que voulez-vous?" [« eh ! what would 
you haver"'] and those broken interjections and accompanying 
shrugs of the shoulders, which in France mean every thing, or 
nothing, just as they are taken. 

*********** 

When Arthur Young travelled through France, in 1789, he 
observed that not only cottages, but well built houses, were 
without glass windows, and had no other light than what the 
door admitted. This true model of an Irish cabin would now, 
1 believe, scarcely be found in any part of France, not even in 
the north, where the peasantry are in a less prosperous condi- 
tion than elsewhere. There is, in the whole appearance of an 
excellent English cottage, an air of indescribable comfort, a 



2(3 PEASANTRY. 

sort of picturesque neatness that goes beyond the line of mere 
cleanliness and accommodation, and which speaks as much to 
the eye of taste, as to the feelings of philanthropy. To this 
character the French habitations, as far as my observation ex- 
tends, do not attain ; although I heard much of the flat-roofed 
cottages of Quercy, and of the exterior neatness and interior 
comfort of the peasant residence in the south. The nearest ap- 
proach to English comfort, which we saw, was in Normandy, 
where the compact buildings, composed of brick, interspersed 
with transverse beams painted black, and deeply buried in their 
" bouquet d'arbres" ["cluster of trees,"] or knots of fruit and 
forest trees, strongly resemble the farming tenements of Staf- 
fordshire and Shropshire. 

The modern French cottages, however, are strong, and well 
built; and are covered with a thatch peculiarly excellent, and 
perfectly adapted to render their lofts warm, and to repel the 
inclemency of their severe winters. Their chimnies are well 
constructed, their windows neatly sashed, and their doors well 
hung : the latter, I observed, were generally kept shut. The 
floor is almost universally of clay, beaten down to the consist- 
ency of stone. In the "grande chambre" or interior room, on 
which the prosperous owner displays his refinement and taste, 
there is occasionally to be found a plancker, or boarded floor. 
The ordinary cottage is, for the most part, divided into two 
apartments : the common room, which serves as kitchen, and a 
better apartment, in which the best bed and best furniture are 
placed. The lofts afford good sleeping rooms for the servants 
and younger part of s the family. Every cottage has its little 
basse-cour, [poultry yard,] its piggery, and cow-shed ; and too 
many exhibit their high estimation of a good/turner, [dunghill,] 
by accumulating the manure, which is to enrich their little 
demesne, nearly opposite to their doors. 

One of the first objects with a French peasant, when he be- 
comes master of a cottage, is to furnish it with an excellent 
bed. This luxury is carried to such an excess, that in many 
provinces, and in the west particularly, they ascend their beds 
by steps. Not to have a lofty bed is a sign of poverty, both in 
taste and in circumstances, which all are anxious to avoid; and 
to meet the " qiCen dira-t-on?" ["'what will they say"] of the 
commune, [neighbourhood,] on this subject, the sumptuousness 
of this piece of furniture is procured at the expense of other 
comforts, or sometimes even of necessaries. In this article, at 
least, the peasantry are wonderfully improved, since the "beau 
sUcle of Louis XIV," ["brilliant age of Louis XIV," that 
golden age, which all « royalistes purs" ["pure royalists,"] wish 
to see restored. In the best sera of that prosperous reign, when 



PEASANTRY, g^ 

Madame de Sevigne arrived at an inn, kept by a peasant, 
near the town of Nantes, she found only straw to lie on ; and 
she describes it as a place "plus pauvre, plus miserable qu'ou 
ne peut It representer ; nous ivy axons trouve que de la penile 
fraiehe, sur quoi nous axons tous couche, sans nous deshabiller ;" 
[" indescribably wretched and miserable : we found nothing but 
some fresh straw, on which we all lay down, without undress- 
ing : ? ] and this was in the most splendid reign that France 
ever witnessed ,• and this was in the very provinces, in which 
the peasant is now such a coxcomb, that he ascends his bed by 
steps. 

I have frequently reckoned three or four beds under the same 
roof, generally placed in a little recess in the wall, and hung 
with faded tapestry, or curtains of tarnished damask, the se- 
cond-hand finery of some fripier [pawn-broker,] of the nearest 
great town, whose stores are even still but too well supplied 
from the spoils of revolutionary depreciation. 

Whatever spiritual grace may exist in the family of a French 
peasant, will be found exhibited in « the outward and xisible 
signs" which decorate the bed's head. There hangs the beni- 
tier, with its holy water, a sort of domestic altar. There too is 
frequently suspended some thrice-blessed relic, which, though. 
it may have lost much of its miraculous efficacy, preserves its 
station ,* there also a maimed virgin, or headless saint, which 
infidelity has neglected, or time dismembered, still remains at 
least for ornament, if not for use. I have frequently observed, 
that the bed of Javotte, under her straw roof, and the bed of the 
petite maitresse of Paris, were precisely on the same model, 
each exhibiting her stock of vanity and superstition, in an ar- 
ticle the least calculated for the display of either. 

The pendule 9 or time-piece, which nearly excited an insur- 
rection in la Bretagne, when introduced into that harassed pro- 
vince, in the days of Louis XIV. (as being some portentous 
engine of the gabelle), [salt excise] is now not only an ornament, 
but an indispensable piece of furniture, and is to be found in 
every better sort of cottage. Those, so much in use among 
the peasantry of the south, are fabricated in the Jura, or the 
Vosge, and are purchased at a very moderate price. To count 
time by its artificial divisions, is the resource of inanity. The 
unoccupied ignorance of the very lowly, and the inevitable 
ennui of the very elevated, alike find their account in consulta- 
tions with a time-piece. It is in the hour-glass of energy and 
of occupation, that the sand is always found lying neglected at 
the bottom. 

One of our most liberal and most recent English travellers 
in France, Mr. Berkbeck, describes in his brief journal a 



gg PEASANTRY. 

French peasant, eating with a silver fork ; and I observed that 
we never stopped even at the poorest hotelerie, [inn] on the 
cross roads, or in the smallest village (which we frequently did, 
as much to talk to the host as to obtain refreshment,) that we 
had not our fruit and fromage de codion [pork cheese] served 
with massy silver forks and spoons. Indeed, with those few 
exceptions, which must be every where found to arise out of the 
peculiar circumstances of individual misfortune, the French cot- 
tage always indicates the dwelling of a thriving and prosperous 
population. 

I have often Jieard it remarked by English travellers, who 
had visited France before the revolution, that the peasantry 
were, at that period, as dishonest as they were necessitous, and 
yielded to temptations of theft the more readily, as the severity 
of the punishment universally prevented prosecution. This 
branch of morals, which depends so much more upon the con- 
dition of those who violate or respect it, than upon any ab- 
stract principle, is necessarily improved in France with the 
amended state of the lower classes. Morals are inevitably bet- 
tered by the competency which excludes temptation ; and pro- 
perty, universally if not equally diffused, begets a respect for 
property, seconded by that law of self-preservatton, which im- 
poses the necessity of *« doing as we would be done by." In this 
respect I have heard it allowed, even by the most exaggerated 
royalists, that the lower classes in France are infinitely im- 
proved, both in the towns and country : and the rarity of exe- 
cutions in France for crimes of dishonesty, forms a singular 
contrast to their melancholy frequency in England. I remem- 
ber our having alighted from our carriage to spare its springs 
in a sort of "crackskull-common road," that wound through 
a wilderness of fruit-trees, which might have passed for the 
original Eden, and which presented such temptations to the 
lips of the traveller, as she, « who for an apple damned man- 
kind," would have found irresistible. I asked a boy, who with 
a little comrade was lying reading under one of these prolific 
trees, whether I might take an apple: he replied coolly, « cela 
ne me regards pas; — they are not mine." [«< it is nothing to me."] 
« But you sometimes help yourself, I dare say." He raised his 
head, and looking at me with an expression of humourous sar- 
casm, he replied, " Vous voulex dire* voler : n'est-ee pas, Ma- 
dame? Non 9 Madame, ilvautmicuxendemamler, que de sej aire 
voleur, pmirune pomme." [« You mean that I steal : do you not 
madam ? No, madam, it is better to ask for one, than to turn 
thief, for an apple."] I know not whether this little anecdote 
lie any illustration of the rustic morals of the country ; but I 



PEASANTRY. 2$ 

saw nothing, during my residence in France, that could induce 
me to consider it as a rare or splendid instance of probity. A 
more remarkable instance, in point with the present subject, 
occurred to an Irish friend. He was leaving Paris during the 
reign of terror, and dropped down the Seine in a small boat, 
which just contained himself and his baggage. Within a mile 
of the town he was hailed by a bon titoyen, [a good citizen] who 
mistook him for a "depute qui s'etoit evade avec de Vor de lare- 
publique? [*« a deputy, who was escaping with the gold of the 
republic"] and was forced to land. After it had been deter- 
mined by the mob that it would not be right to kill him without 
examination, he was d jagged away to the maire de commune, 
[mayor of the commonalty] where he was detained nearly an hour, 
before he could show his passports, and be admitted to proceed. 
Yet on his return to his boat, he found his gold-headed cane, 
silver saucepan, baggage, every thing in short, in statu quo, 
without injury, and without violation. Even then the- lower 
classes began to feel they had a character to support, and guilty 
of crime, they already disdained the vices of slaves. 

Sobriety is a constitutional virtue with the French ; and 
drunk en ness a vice strictly confined to the very refuse of the 
very lowest orders, which always infest great and populous ci- 
ties.* I remember asking an old female peasant in Picardy, 
whether les bonnes meres du village, [the good mothers of the vil- 
lage] were ever guilty of this failing ? She replied with indig- 
nation : — « Dame .' elles seroient chassees de notre commune," — 
["Lady ! they would be turned out of the neighbourhood/'] 

The thin light tin du pays, [country wine] is the table-drink 
of the poorest peasantry ; and there are few so poor, as not to 
have a little store of superior quality in the petit caveau, or cel- 
lar, to celebrate the many "festins" [holidays] which enjoy- 
ment steals from labour, under the sanctified terms of epochs 
and commemorations. 

To estimate the virtue of temperance, in the lower classes of 
any nation, it is necessary, perhaps, to have lived in a country 
so conditioned, that drunkenness becomes almost a venial re- 
source against inevitable misery — where the policy, by which 
the land is ruled, exhibits such a complete tissue of error, both 
in its legislation and administration, that much of its power is 
derived from the perpetuation of a vice, which keeps the peo- 
ple degraded, and at the same time pours money into the exche- 
quer. 

*********** 

The modes of every-day life in France, even among the peas- 
antry and lower classes, are powerfully influenced by the happy 

* The military, however, drink freely. 



30 PEASANTRY. 

and genial temperament of the people. And though the peas- 
antry are not without a certain brusquerie, [bluntness] of man- 
ner, arising out of their condition, it is tempered by a courte- 
sy, which indicates an intuitive urbanity, beyond the reach of 
art to teach, or the means of cunning to acquire ; and it ex- 
plains what Caesar meant, when he declared, he found the Gauls 
** the politest barbarians he had conquered/ 9 There is, however, 
among the peasantry of the present day, as among all the lower 
classes, a certain tone of independence, # which almost seems to 
claim equality with the superior person they address, and which 
is evidently tinged with the republican hue, so universally 
adopted during the revolution. A French peasant, meeting his 
brother peasant, takes off his hat, with the air of a petit-mditre ; 
and I have seen two labourers argue the ceremonies of their 
bare-headed salutation, with as many stipulations as would go 
to a treaty of peace. 

"Mais monsieur, mon ami, cowvrcz-vous, jc vous en ^??*ie."— 
U Eh, mais vous, monsieur, parbleu ! si vous Vordonnez ; la" — 
[" But sir, my friend, be covered I beg of you." — " Weil, then, 
sir, if you insist upon it."] And both, with a bow and a scrape, 
after a few more compliments, resume their hats and conversa- 
tion together. Eqrally polite to his superior, but not less in- 
dependent in his manner than when addressing his equal, «P- 
homme du peuple" [« the man of the populace"] now looks «l'- 
homme comme il faut" [« the man of fashion"] full in the face, 
when he addresses him ; and there is indeed a mixture of in- 
telligence and frankness in his manner, extremely pleasant to 
witness, and at once foreign from familiarity and meanness. — 
Oh ! in listening to their sensible questions, and frank replies, 
how often, and how unavoidably, have I contrasted their de- 
portment with that of the peasantry of my own country, where 
a whole population seem condemned to exhibit, in their unregu- 
lated conduct and manners, the extremes of lawless resistance, 
and of groveling servility ; — where he, who for some trifling 
benefit to-day kneels in the dust at your feet, in exaggerated 
gratitude, with « long may you reign I may yon have a happy 
death /" (for power and death are familiar images to the Irish 
mind) will, perhaps, to-morrow, in the midnight meetings of 
his wretched hovel, in the desperation of poverty and inebriety, 
plan the violation of your property, or the destruction of your 
life. Slave of his passions, and victim of his wrongs; in good 
or ill, equally governed by their tyranny, he re-acts upon the 

* When Napoleon, in one of Ins harangues to the people, addressed the 
peasantry by the term "paysam" [peasants] it g-ave general umbrage, as if the 
same term had been given to the yeomanry of England. He accordingly took 
care not to repeat it. 



PEASANTRY. 34 

policy which made him what he is, with a faithful, but fright- 
ful influence. 

The domestic manners of the French peasantry, like their 
domestic affections, are mild and warm ; and the possessive pro- 
noun, which denotes the strong binding interest of property in 
the object to which it is attached, is profusely given to all the 
endearing ties of kindred. " Notre mari," [" our husband,"] 
or more frequently « notre maitre," [" our master/'] is the term 
which the wife uses, when speaking of or to her husband ; and 
the adjectives of "bon," or "petit,"* ["good," or "little,"] 
are generally attached to every member of the family, accord- 
ing to their rank, or age. The grandsire is always " le bon 
papa, 1 ' ["the good papa,"] and ail the sisters and brothers are 
" petite" and "petit," [" little."] 

Dining my most pleasant residence at the Chateau D' Orson- 

ville, I remember one morning accompanying Mad. de C 

in a walk into the village, to visit an ancient vigneron, [hus- 
bandman.] who had, in his youth, been a gardner in the fami- 
ly, and who was now a sort of little ptroprietaire, [proprietor,] 
cultivating his own petite terre, [little ground,] and supporting 
a family of three generations, by its produce. 

The cottage of this little landholder was inclosed within a 
low mud wail, immediately opposite to it ; and within the same 
court was tUe smaller cot: age of his son's family. A flower 
knot, in which we found the old man working, although it was 
Sunday, was the ornament of both. " Bon jour, pere Marin," 

[" Good day, father Marin,"] said Madame de C , as we 

entered the wicket gate. »• Bon jour mademoiselle," returned 
pere Marin, throwing aside his spade, and approaching us with 
a low bow, not ungracefully performed for a man of years. — . 
" Et, la bonne femme ?" [" And, the good woman ?"] asked Ma- 
dame de C . 

"Lavoila, notre femme,' 9 ["There is our wife,"] replied pere 
Mann, pointing to the cottage — " Hie apprend a notre petit bon 
homme aprier le bon Dieu ;" ["she is teaching our little man 
to pray to God ;"] and, in fart, we found notre petit bon homme, 
a fine boy of four years old, on his knees before his ancient 
grandmother. She arose at our entrance, and replacing her 
missal and beads on a shelf, which contained some gardeners' 
calendars, and an old volume of Bossuet, welcomed us with 
great courtesy. Madame de C enquired for ail the mem- 
bers of her family (and she asked for each by their name :) the 

* These family endearments are the same among the first as among- the 
lower classes, and the diminutive "petite" is given to the daughter or sister of 
a duke, as in the family of a peasant. 



3g PEASANTRY. 

old woman replied, "pour notre Jils, il est alle s'egayer aujeu de 
bague 9 au chateau — et notre bru, elle est aupres du berceau de no- 
ire petite, petite; et pour le petit bon homme 9 le voila, le voila, It 
magot.'" ["our son, is gone to the castle, to play at the ring— 
our daughter-in-law is beside the cradle of our grandchild ; and 
as for the little man, there he is, the monkey ."] 

Madame de Chabanais asked " le magot" whether he would 
accompany her back to the chateau. — << Mais tres volontiers" 
["willingly,"] he replied, and nodding to his grandfather and 
grandmother, he added, « adieu, notre bon papa; adieu* notre 
bonne maman; adieu, maman," [" adieu, good papa; adieu 
good mamma ; adieu mamma,"] to his young mother, who was 
seated at the door of her cottage, rocking the cradle of an in- 
fant child, and engaged in making a shirt for her husband. 

The peasantry submit with difficulty to the ennui of idleness, 
imposed on them by the new regulations, which enforce the 
strict observance of the sabbath — an observance unknown in 
most Catholic countries. 

Before J take leave of the family of notre bon perc Marin, [our 
good father Marin,) I must notice an incident, which struck me 
Forcibly. The book-shelf of the grandfather was filled with books 
of devotion and agriculture. The books on the shelves, in the 
son's cottage, (which were pretty numerous) consisted of some 
odd volumes of Voltaire, Moliere, Rouseau, and la Bruyere. I 
asked the young woman, whether her husband read much ? 
She said, always when he had time. After we had walked in 
pcre Marin's garden, which was large and well stocked, he 
hobbled after me with some fine carnations, apologizing that 
his grapes were not ripe. I have preserved these flowers ; for 
I know no specimen in the hortus siccus of Linnaeus more pre- 
cious, than the flowers gathered from among the cabbages of a 
peasant's garden. 

1 observed in the cottage of le pere Mann, as indeed I did 
wherever 1 had an opportunity of conversing with the French 
peasantry, a primitive simplicity of manner, united to natural 
quickness and evident tendency to a sort of quaint humour. 
In Auvergne, la Brctagne, and the Bearnois* I am told this is 
particularly observable; and that among these truly pastoral 
people the subject of many modern idyll in ins may be found, 
not less touching or less naive than the ancient. Nor, indeed, 
are the Theocriti and Sannazaris of the Theatres des Vaude- 
villes, et de la Variete, unfaithful to their originals; though, 
perhaps, they do not always take the most poetical view of 
their subjects. 

The tu-toyer has no equivalent in the primitive thee and thou 
of the English translation. The tu-toijer universal in France* 



PEASANTRY. 33 

in all the intercourse of friendship and intimacy, is always used 
among the peasants, except to their superiors, to whom, dur- 
ing the revolution, it was also applied in the then reigning 
grammar of French equality. '* Ici on se tu-toif [« here they 
thee and thou"] was frequently seen written over the doors of 
the public bureaux, [offices.] Perhaps it was a remains of the 
rustic education, received by the royal mountaineer, Henry IV. 
which made him not only tu-toijer his wife, as he called his 
queen, but his ministers of state — 

" Je bois a toi, Sally, 

Mais j'ai failli : 

Je devois dire a vmis, adorable duchesse f 

Pour boire a vos appas, 

Faut mettre chapeau bas." 

[" I drink to thee Sully, 

But I see I am mistaken : 

I must say to ymt adorable duchess ! 

Whoever drinks to your charms, 

Must take his hat off."] 

By this little chanson a boire, [drinking song.] the tu and toi 
were even evidently deemed vulgarisms, which offended the 
pride of the haughty Duchesse de Sully, whom the royal poet 
dignifies with the stately pronoun " vous." I have heard Na- 
poleon's roturier [plebeian] origin quoted by the royalistes purs, 
[pure royalists.] as explaining the vulgar circumstance of his 
using the « tu-toyer "to the daughter of the Ccesars, who, how- 
ex er, was so little hurt by the coarse familiarity, as to call the 
Emperor of the French and King of Italy, in return, « mon 
petit raton !" [the word raton, designates both a cheesecake and 
a small rat. The reader may chuse which of the two significa- 
tions appears to him the most probable. — T.] 

All the ties of kindred are peculiarly sacred among the French 
peasantry ; and parental feelings are so strong as to have given 
rise to a custom, which, however touching, in a pastoral tale, 
would perhaps, in real life, he more « honored in the breach 
than the observance." 

When the aged parent beholds the prospects of life closing 
dimly on his view, he endeavours to catch one parting ray from 
its sinking sun, by an act, which rallies all the best feelings of 
humanity to the heart. He gives up his all to his children, 
and throws himself on their generosity and gratitude for future 
comfort, maintenance, and support. He thus affords them the 
opportunity of repaying the cares he lavished on their helpless 
state, by consigning his feebleness to their protection : and as 
he is led from the cottage of one child to that of another, his ar- 
rival and departure awaken all that yet remains vital at the 



34, PEASANTRY. 

heart of the old sire, and renew emotions, which usually slum- 
ber or die in the independent selfishness, by which the egotism 
of age excludes itself from gratuitous kindness. 

This imprudent, but benevolent custom of an affectionate 
and primitive people (for the French peasants are extremely 
primitive,) is sometimes, though very rarely, a test of human 
virtue too much for the proof, and evinces in the father's wrongs 
"how much sharper than a serpent's tooth is an ungrateful 
child." The destitute and ill-requited parent may sometimes 
appeal to the friends protection, or the stranger's sympathy, 
and cry, in the affecting words of Lear: « I gave them all." 
It is delightful however, to believe, what I was constantly as- 
sured, that such instances of turpitude are very rare; and that 
splendid examples of filial devotion and filial gratitude are of 
every-day occurrence. A peasant father, who had thus gene- 
rously, but incautiously, distributed his little property, during 
his life-time, among his children, was met by a neighbour, as 
he was returning from his first visit to the house of his son — 
"Eh; comment vous ont-ils regu?" [" And ; how have they re- 
ceived you?"] asked his friend. «* Comme leur enfant.'" ["As 
their child !' ? ] was the touching reply. 

Oh ! blessed be the roof which shelters the aged parent's head 
from the last rough shocks of time and of adversity ! — beneath 
whose shed love repays all that love bestowed ! — : where the cra- 
dle of reposing age is gently rocked by filial hands; and where 
the last look of life falls on objects, which render even its last 
moments precious ! 

In this act of confidence and generosity, the servants of the 
family are never forgotten. And they, in return, when they 
die childless, bequeath their savings to some of the children of 
the family, with whom they acquired it. The tie between the 
servant and master, in the peasant regime, is also cemented by 
some of the kindliest feelings, of which human nature is sus- 
ceptible. 

Among the Protestants of Saintonge, the favourite domestic 
is chosen to answer for Venfant de lafamille, [the child of the 
family,] at the baptismal font; and this religious alliance in- 
spires the most devoted attachment, on the part of the servant, 
to the young master. Still, however, the farmer who marries 
the »' domestiqve" as the female servant is called in the rustic 
menage, [family,] is lost for ever to all respectability in his 
commune, [neighbourhood.] This aristocratic horror of a mis- 
alliance* so strange in a primitive peasantry, doubtless has its 
origin in some old prejudice, which has escaped beyond the 
records of traditionary lore. 

There is, among the lower classes of the French, a species 



PEASANTRY. gg 

of native humour, which, quaint and simple, occasionally fur- 
nishes little comic scenes of an almost dramatic effect, in their 
daily intercourse. I remember seeing an old voiturier [carrier] 
indulging his humourous disposition, at the expense of the so- 
lemnity of the stately cemmissaire of the barriere St Denis, with 
an accompanying grimace and posture quite indescribable. He 
was driving his little vehicle carelessly along, singing to a 
group of peasant girls, whom he was conveying to Paris, 

" Qui veut savoir t'histoire entiere 
De Mam'selle Manon, la couturiere." 
[" Who will hear the whole history 
Of Mam'selle Manon the mantua-maker." 

« Vbtre passe-porf 9 [" Your passport"] — demanded the com- 
missaire, — a tall, stately-looking military man, with only one 
leg. The old voitiwier looked him full in the face ; then re- 
commencing "qui veut savoir, <§*c. <$*c," was driving on, when 
the commissaire, furious at this want of respect to the dignity 
of Iiis office, seized the reins of the sorry horse, with a volley 
of imprecations, terminating his anathemas with "votre passe- 
port, ou vous n 9 y passerez pas." « Comment, diable, je n 9 y pas- 
serai pas ? 99 [" your passport, or you shall not pass here." — 
" How, the devil, I shall not pass ?"] repeated the voiturier, 
starting from his seat in a passion ; *• un passe-port pour mes 
quatre pucelles ."' pointing to the girls, « faut-il faire peage pour 
des denrees telles que celd ? Va-t-on octroyer les pucelles ? Diable 
emporte Vame de mon chien, si fen comprende un mot, moi! — te- 
nex, monsieur ! que voulez-vous faire avec ces quatre pucelles ?" 
[*» a passport for my four girls ? must we pay toll for such goods 
as these ? Are the girls prohibited articles ? I cannot under- 
stand a word of it. Well, sir, and what would you do with 
these four girls ?"] The rage and impatience of the com- 
missaire was now at its height, when the old voiturier, having 
indulged his humour, showed his passport, and coolly taking up 
his song of « Mam 9 selle Manon, la couturiere," drove on. 
*********** 

An elegant and modern biographer of Madame de Mainte- 
non^ observes, that in the <• beau siecle^ 9 of Louis XIV, « les es- 
prits etoient soumis a la religion, comme au monarque," [« bril- 
liant age of Louis 14th, the wits submitted to religion as to the 
monarch."] And Madame de Maintenon herself declares, that 
some of the gay young men of the most tiresome court in Eu- 
rope were, "pleins de grandes impictes, et de sentimens d'ingrati- 
tude, envers le roW 9 ['* full of impiety and ingratitude towards 

* Madame Suaixl. 



gfl PEASANTRY. 

the king."] While it was thus the fashion of that pious day, to 
confound the sovereign and the Deity, and to consider the king 
both as the « law and the prophets," in the purlieus of his own 
court,* the peasantry, removed from the immediate presence of 
this human divinity, had but very loose ideas of a religion 
which was taught by priests, who, Madame Maintenon de- 
clares, in one of her confidential letters, " knew no more than 
themselves," adding — « Us ne songent qiCa parer leurs eglises ; 
ceux qui sont plus eclaires, songent a Men precher; et leurs brebis 
ignorent tout" ["they think only of decorating their churches; 
those who are more enlightened aim at preaching well ; and 
their flocks are ignorant of every tiling."] 

To this testimony of the state of religion, among the Catho- 
lic peasantry of France, given by the exterminator of the Pro- 
testants, it is curious to add an anecdote of the dark ignorance 
of the peasantry of La Bretagne, on subjects of religious impor- 
tance, and carelessly related by one, who cites it as a trait of 
humour, rather to be laughed at, than to be deplored ; and 
whose evidence upon all cotemporary subjects may be fairly 
admitted. 

" Pour La Mousse,'* (says Mad. de Sevigne, speaking of the 
abbe of that name,) "II fait des catechismes, les fetes et diman- 
ches. L' autre jour it interrogeoit les petits enfans, et apres plu- 
sieurs questions, Us confondirent le tout ensemble ; de sorte que, ve- 
nant a leur demander, qui etroit la vierge, Us repondirent tous 9 
Vun apres, I'autre, que c 9 etoit le createlr du ciej, et de jla 
terre ! II nefut point ebranlL par les petits enfans ; mais voy- 
ant que des hoiumes et desjhnmes, et meme des viellards, disoient 
la meme chose, it fit persuade, et se rendit a l> opinion commune /" 
[<» As to La Mousse, he makes catechisms, festivals and sab- 
baths; the other day he was interrogating the little children, 
and after several questions, they confounded the whole togethei ; 
so that when he asked them, « who was the Virgin," they all 

* "Dieu m'a fait la grace, madame, (says the feeble Racine to Mad. de Main- 
tenon,) en quelle compagnie que je me sois trouvc, dc ne jamais rougir de l'- 
evangile, ni du roi," [" God has given me grace, madam, in whatever company 
I find myself, never to blush for the gospel, nor for the king."] And yet this 
divinity died, alike hated and despised, left almost alone for three days on his 
death-bed, abandoned by his wife and his confessor. — His death was celebra- 
ted by rejoicings, which reached from the capital to the place of sepulture; 
and the remains of Louis the Great were carried through bye-way* to their 
long home, to avoid the indignation of a people, from whom he had only ex- 
torted blood and tears, and who, long opposing itself to the adulation of a cor- 
rupt court, had already changed the epithet of "le grand," ["the great"] into 
that of " maitvais roi," [" bad king "] 

Racme, who associates the king and the gospel so intimately, in his familiar 
letters, in his work on the Porte Royal, talks of the great designs of God oh 
la mrre Agnes. Such was the intellectual calibre of the author of Phcdra. 



PEASANTRY. 37 

answered one after another, "the creator of heaven and earth." 
He was not startled by the children ; but finding that the men 
and women, even the old men, said the same, he was convinced 
at last, and gave way to the common opinion."] 

If, therefore, in the latter days of Louis XIV . when religion 
under the king and Madame de Maintenon had become & fashion 
among all classes, cotemporary writers assert that the peasantry 
in the provinces, old and young, believed God the Creator, and 
the Virgiii Mary, to be one and the same person, it may be 
presumed that the cause of faith was not much bettered, under 
the reigns of the infidel* regent, and his profligate ward.. It 
may also be inferred that the Cardinals du Bois, la Faris, de 
Tencins, and de Fleiiris, those Mascarilles of church and state, 
who governed botli by such tricks and subtleties, as were worthy 
only of the valets and buffos of the vicious Italian drama,f did 
not, by their example and conduct, enlighten the doctrine or 
improve the lives of the subaltern clergy, over whom they ruled. 

It is the fashion to declaim, however, against the decline of 
religion in France, in the present day, and comparing it to its 
former state under the old regime, to lament it has so little 
influence over the peasantry, and lower orders. But what was 
the religion, whose "decline" is thus lamented? >Yhat was its 
influence on a people, buried in the grossest superstition and 
darkest ignorance ? While it permitted its ministers to mingle 
in the intrigues, and foment the disunions of all the courts in 
Europe, and to countenance the vices of the most licentious of 
its courts: — while it induced the king of France to compromise 
matters with his conscience, by sending away his mistresses in 
Lent, and by taking them back at Easter:): ! ! ! and enabled him 
to quiet his death-bed fears, by laying his enormities on the 
shoulders of his confessor^; lending its sanction to any vice 

* The devout Mad. de Parabtre endeavoured to court the regent's favour, hj 
affecting- infidelity. " Tu a beau /aire" ["It is all in vain"] said the regent, 
smiling-, "tu seras sauvee," ["you will be saved."] 

■f See the Memoires Secrets cf the reign of Louis XV. 

\ Between the exhortations of her confessor, and those of Mad. de Mainte- 
non, Mad. de Montespan was induced to quit the king in the semaine sainte, 
[holy week.] Bossuet also preached to the king the necessity of giving up 
his mistress, but the " semaine sainte" being over, Bossuet and Mad. de Main- 
tenon, who had other views for the royal penitent, beheld with mortification 
the return of the mistress to Versailles, "plus triomphante et plus eclatante de 
beaute, qxCon ne Vavoit jamais viie," ["more triumphant and more sparkling* 
with beauty, than ever."] It was, however, the queen who prevailed upon the 
fair penitent to return to Versailles, and it was the minister of state Louvois, 
' who says Mad. de Maintenon, " a menage une tete-a-tete" [" had managed a 
tete-a-tete."] What a combination, and what a picture ! 

§ The ferocious confessor of Louis XIV. the Jesuit Le Teliier, the persecu- 
tor of all that was good and illustrious in that day, and who united in his views 
and intrigues the Pope and the King of France., stood beside the bed of the 



2S PEASANTRY. 

rich enough to purchase its indulgences*, and forwarding any 
views that promised to repay the compliance of its ministers, 
was its influence to he commended, and its corruptions passed 
over. 

When the events of the revolution took their re-action upon 
all the errors of the state, which they overturned, it was natu- 
ral for the disciples of ignorance and superstition to deny prin- 
ciples, when they lost sight of forms ; and it belonged to the 
immediate descendants of those, who declared God and the 
Vifgpi to be one and the same person, to pronounce in their im- 
pious folly, that there was no God, to-day, and to vote him int$ 
existence, to-morrow. For impiety thus daring and extrava- 
gant, was the natural re-action of superstition thus dark and 
ludicrous. 

Amidst all the absurdities, however, which during the revo- 
lution attended the temporary abolition of Catholicism, it is 
most certain that it then received a shock, which in France can 
never, and will never be repaired. Among the peasant class, 
this shock has been more or less resisted, according to the force 
on which it had to act. In the west it was remotely felt. In la 
Vendee, where the three thousand nuns and priests, in their 
pontificals, had been seen in the rear of the royal army, raising 
the crucifix with the bayonet, and lighting the torch of civil 
contention, at the lamp of faith, Catholicism still finds her 
altars unimpaired. In many parts of the south a simple, and 
primitive people, who have always substituted habits for prin- 
ciples, .and presented a rich soil to fanaticism in the ardour of 
temperament, still cling to the religion, and superstition of 

dying Icing 1 , who said to him, " Jevous rends responsable devant Dieu, man pere, 
de toutes les violences que vovs m'avez ordonnees," — ["Father, I make you re- 
sponsible before- God, for ail the acts of violence you have ordered me to 
commit."] — Que re. Did he accept the responsibility ? — See Mad. de Mainte- 
non's Life, &c. &c. 

* It was the confessor of Mad. de Maintcnon, who quieted her scruples about 
living with the king's mistresses, receiving the addresses of a married man, 
and assisting at the orgies, which went under the name of media noche. " Ii 
falloit que Dieu, (says Mad. de Maintenon) eQt domic des gratifies lumicres a VAbbe 
Goblin, pour qi/'il pritsur lid de decider, avec tonte Vauiorite (Pun apdtre, que je de~ 
vois rester d la cour. J'exposai tout d ce saint liovune, qui pevsista d m^ordunncr 
d'ydemeurer." ["God must have greatly enlightened the Abbe (Joblin, before 
he could take upon himself to decide, with all the authority of an apostle, that 
I ought to remain at court. I told every thing to this holy man, who persisted 
in ordering me to slay."] 

The immorality of all this is nothing to the odious and canting hypocrisy of 
the shrewd and strong-minded woman, who never could have believed that 
God inspired her confessor with the force of an apostle, to order her to join 
the midnight revels of the king, which assembled all that was roost profligate 
and parasitical in his court. It was this permission to ass r st at these suppers, 
that Mad. de Maintenon asked, when she said, "f exposal tont, ire. &c. [" I told 
every thing, &.c. Sec] 



, 



PEASANTRY. 39 

their fathers. After the abolition of the priesthood, and when 
in these provinces there were no ministers to officiate, the pea- 
santry were seen assembling in the dilapidated churches, and 
chaunted the office, and celebrated the mass, with as much 
faith and unction, as if they had heen paid for their services, or 
looked to being rewarded with the produce of the dime, [tithe.] 
It is however a singular fact, universally known, that while 
they thus devoutly clung to the cross, they professed abhor- 
rence to its ministers, and dreaded the return of the curify 
or vicars, who long before the revolution had forfeited all claim 
to their respect, by the undisguised profligacy of their lives. 
and had rendered themselves eminently obnoxious by their in- 
creasing exactions, under the sanction of the dime. 

<* As long as I can remember," said a gentleman to me in 
Paris, who was a native of the south of France, — " as long as 
I can remember, enfant de pretre [child of a priest] was a term, 
of reprohation among us, given only to the most abject and de- 
graded." In the midland provinces, in the north, and north- 
east of the kingdom, the catholic religion still retains its forms; 
and its rites, now severely enforced, are duly performed, though, 
generally speaking, coldly and partially attended to, while the 
increase of the priesthood, both in number and influence, is 
universally looked on with fear and horror. 

The public mind in France has made a bold and vigorous 
spring, in proportion to the tension, which had so long re- 
strained its force : and even the peasantry, generally speaking, 
are as averse to fanaticism, and as alive to the absurdities of 
popular superstition, as the most enlightened class of yeomanry 
in England, while it is obvious to all who converse with them 
on such topics, that they are infinitely more tolerant. They 
demand no master-cast in faith and doctrine; they cry not for 
exclusive distinctions and unshared privileges. « Liberty of con- 
science for all men" appears the first article in their creed, and 
safety from sectarian persecution, their prayer for others, and 
for themselves. This blessed privilege, the birthright of man, 
they enjoyed to the fullest extent, under the splendid despotism 
of that singular person, whom they raised to the government 
of their nation, and whom they never would have abandoned, 
had not their love of constitutional liberty been keener than 
their love of national glory. They submitted to change, only 
because they hoped for amelioration. 

Buonaparte, who had made his unrestricted power the pio- 
neer to any despotism which might succeed his own, was well 
aware that Catholicism was the fit religion for a despot ; and 
that there was no instance of any country in Europe, where 
freedom and Catholicism dwelt together. He therefore built up 



£0 PEASANTRY. 

her ruined temples, and raised her prostrate standard ; but he 
made her impotent in her influence, and powerless in her agency*. 
He held the chief of her church in " durance vile;" he 
sheathed her blood-stained sword in a scabbard of peace, nor 
suffered the embers of her martyr-fires to be again rekindled. 
"Shorn of her beams," this once powerful ruler of the human 
mind could no longer incarcerate in dungeons, burn at the 
stake, nor torture on the wheel. Retaining her title of sove- 
reignty, without one particle of its power, she " held a barren 
sceptre," and imaged the future destiny of him, who, in his isle 
of rocks, reigned only over a few willing subjects, by the ties 
of ancient habitudes, ancient affections, and ancient prejudices. 

In reviving the order of the priesthood, he rendered them 
dependent on the state, and thus deprived them of all temporal 
influence. He restored no oppressive tythes, for their mainte- 
nance ; he permitted no enormous revenues, for their extrava- 
gance ; he gave them no special exemptions, nor exclusive pri- 
vileges; and his estimate of their utility and influence was cu- 
riously marked, in the well-known circumstance of his having 
assigned the same revenue to the Archbishop of Paris* as to his 
own maitre de chapelle, [master of the chapel.] Thus the fruits 
of that once powerful see, the object of ambition to the illustri- 
ous Noailles and haughty Harlays, exceeded in nothing the re- 
venue of the compose r of Elfrida, and the « Zingari en Fiera"* 

The Catholic religion, therefore, as revived in France, was 
a state religion, lending its seal to civil forms, and adding the 
weight of its venerable character to the novelty of political in- 
stitutes. Alike free from persecution, or disunion, it left each 
man to the dictates of his own conscience, or the conviction of 
his own mind. It tolerated all other sects, white to its own 
faithful adherents it presented all it had ever possessed of be- 
neficent and good. It had still power to console, but it was no 
longer capable of persecution. It opened its consecrated tem- 
ples for the oraisons of the devout ; but it presented no pageant 
shows for the amusement of the idle, nor was it taught to recall, 
to the generation of the nineteenth century, all that was ludi- 
crous and profane, in the barbarous superstitions of the four- 
teenth. 

The restoration of the many religious processions, which 
have taken place since the return of Louis XVIIf. is a subject 
of universal disgust and derision to all classes in his dominions, 
with the exception of those, whose interest it is to countenance 
them; and the sarcasms which I heard levelled against these 
ceremonies even by the menu peuple, [common people] during 

* The incomparable Paesiello, maitre ds chatdle to the Emperor. 



PEASANTRY. 44 

two Sundays that I assisted at the fete-dieu, in Paris, were quite 
sufficient to convince me, that in France, as Scagnerelle says, 
* on a change tout cela" [« they have changed all that."] 

The fete-dieu is one of the most solemn and splendid festivals 
in the Roman church, and its preparations and rehearsals occu- 
pied and thronged the streets of Paris, for some days before the 
great performance took place. In every direction crowds of 
workmen, carpenters, upholsterers, and gardeners, were seen, 
fitting up the reposoirs, or temporary chapels, before which the 
procession was to halt, where the host was to be elevated, and a 
short service performed. These reposoirs were generally placed 
before the portecochere, or gateway of some public building. 
There was one before the prison of PAbbaye, and another be- 
fore the palais de justice. But that which struck roe most for 
its splendor and its extreme research, was before the portals 
of the minister of police, M. de Caze ; and, I believe, raised 
under his own immediate direction. It was a sort of alcove, 
open to the street, and in its whole arrangement something 
like one of those decorated recesses, in which Columbine, stand- 
ing on one leg upon a pedestal, first presents herself to the 
charmed eyes of Harlequin in our Christmas pantomimes. This 
hallowed structure was lined and hung with different coloured 
Telvets and showy silks, trimmed with gold fringe, and artih% 
cial flowers, decorated with prints and roses, with relics and 
toys, with crowns of thorns, and Jleurs de lis. The high altar, 
raised above many richly carpeted steps, was the centre of all 
that was most precious in piety and taste, covered with baskets 
of exotics and silver candlesticks, with fruit in «vax-work, and 
saints in or molu, and exhibiting to the eyes of faith and loyal- 
ty, a Christ on a crucifix, and a plaster bust of Louis XVIII. 
both fresh and new, and done expressly for the occasion. 

When I passed by this reposoir, at a late hour on the eve of 
the festival, the workmen were finishing it by candle and lamp 
light. — « Quelle depense," [« What an expense,"] said my hus- 
band to a gentleman, who was talking to us, at the window of 
our carriage. ** Et pour quelle bctise .'" ["And for what folly/'] 
answered the driver of a cabriolet, who had stopped his little 
vehicle to gaze on the reposoir. As we lived near the Abbaye 
St. Germain, in which parish one of the first Sunday proces- 
sions took place, we were awakened with the dawn on the pre- 
ceding morning, by the noise of hammering, and the tingling 
of bells ; and on walking out we found the houses of every 
street, through winch the procession was to pass, bedecked and 
ornamented according to the ability or taste of the owner : for, 
« bon gre. mat gre, 19 [« whether they would, or not,"] every one 
was obliged to contribute to. the show of the day, though few 

G 



4$ PEASANTRY. 

had any recollection, how the thing was got up upon former oc« 
casions. 

During the preceding day, the street-passenger ran the risk 
of suffocation hy the dust of ages, which was shaken out of car- 
pets, tapestry, and blankets, at every door; all in preparation 
for " la derniere repetition" [•< the last representation."] The 
poverty of some of these decorations, and the incongruity of 
others ; the brilliant colours of the new Gobelin tapestry, the 
faded hues of the old; the simple white sheet, ffaute demieuxj 
[for want of a better,] or thread-bare blanket, ffaute de tout J 
[for want of any thing else,] gave a sort of rag-fair appearance 
to the noble fauxbourg St. Germain, which not even the many 
pictures and busts of the King and the Virgin, profusely distri- 
buted among the « shreds and patches" of piety, could relieve 
or dignify. When the procession, with its dramatis personam 
appeared, all this scenery and machinery lost its attraction, 
and the actors themselves took exclusive hold of our breathless 
attention. 

Of the two processions which I witnessed, what struck me 
most in the first was the vanguard, a little boy of four years 
old, dressed in regimentals, who I thought at first was meant 
to be a caricature of Buonaparte, but who, a pious old lady as- 
sured me, represented St. John the Baptist. What interested 
me in the second was, that the rear was composed of the royal 
family, and M. Chateaubriand ! The procession of the fete-dieu 
was preceded and announced by a very fine band of music, and 
passed through the centre of the streets, which on each side 
were filled wit|| a multitude of people, curious to see a spectacle 
so long deniedlhem. Then followed, in order, the servants of 
the house de Montmorenci, in their singular and rich liveries, 
and some of the domestics* of the royal establishment. The 
confraternity of the rosary (above an hundred females,) all at- 
tired in white, crowned with lilies, half veiled, and carrying 
wax tapers, succeeded to the lackies and valets de chambre, 
and were followed by the " catechistes" or young females ad- 
mitted recently to confirmation, all in the same vestal hue, even 
to their shoes. Among these latter I beheld, to my astonish- 
ment, the noble daughters of the illustrious house de Montmo- 
renci, accompanied by their pious femmes de chambre, [waiting- 
maids.] all chaunting hymns, « avec leurs xoix pnres et virgi- 
uales,''' [« with their pure and virgin voices,"] like the fair cho- 

* It is an old custom of state and piety in France, for the noblesse to send 
their servants to these processions, and thus to show off their liveries and de- 
votion at the same time. " Que ferons-iwits "de uos dotneetiqnes ce care me . ? " 
[" What shall we do with our servants this lent?"] said a fair pietist, who was 
lamenting' that there were no processions. "Nous !cs ferons jetiner" [ M we 
will make them fast,*'] was the reply of her equally pious friend. 



PEASANTRY. 4g 

russet's in " Esther," at St. Cyr. The choir succeeded, consist- 
ing of a number of stout young priestlings, recently initiated, 
dressed in white robes; some flinging their massive silver cen- 
sers in the air, while clouds of frankincense and myrrh rose 
with loud hosannahs to the skies, and others flung rose-leaves, 
from ornamented baskets, beneath their feet. 

This solemn act was performed every ten minutes, the whole 
corps dramatique stopping short, turning round, and bowing 
profoundly to the dais, or canopy, which followed close behind, 
and which contained the holy mystery of the host, lying on a 
cushion of crimson and gold ! The dais was composed of four 
short transverse poles, something like a bier, or a child's go-cart, 
surmounted with a splendid canopy, under which two prelates, 
in grand pontificals, who carried the host, walked with a motion 
irregular and slow as the first tottering steps of infancy, an ir- 
regularity communicated by a want of uniformity in the move- 
ment of those who carried the poles of the dais. On either side 
of the sanctum sanctorum walked some of the peers of France 
and cordons bleus* [blue ribbons,] all bare-headed, and in full 
costume, accompanied by the moires [mayors] of the arrondis- 
semens. Immediately behind the tabernacle, with eyes up- 
turned and elevated head, appeared M. Chateaubriand, the 
" philosopher of the desert, 9 '' in blue and silver. The whole was 
closed with a troop of soldiers, and in the neighbourhood of 
Notre Dame the cortege of the jcte-dieu was ennobled and en- 
larged by the presence of royalty itself! 

There the Count d'Artois, the Due and Duchesse d'Angou- 
leme, and the Due and Duchesse de Berri, joined the pious 
train, with uncovered heads, and carrying wax tapers. Thrice 
they thus paced the holy rounds of Notre Dame with royal pil- 
grim steps, to the delight of the pious, and to the amusement 
of their less devout subjects, who thus saw the heads of the 
state lending their powerful sanction to forms and customs, 
which reason and opinion had long consigned to oblivion ; who 
thus beheld the days of the vow-making Louis XIII. and of the 
pious revoker of the edict of Nantz again restored, and the 
progress of illumination checked by the ordinances and example 
of the government. 

As far as my observations went, as I mixed among the pro- 
miscuous crowd, pretty generally, the feelings excited by this 
parade of royal piety and fantastic devotion, were not univer- 
sally those of edification or applause. " On a beaufaire," [" It 
is all in vain,"] said a woman, as she kneeled down beside me 
while the host passed by. « Cela ne tiendra pas," [" This will 
not last,"] hummed a man, who resumed his hat and wiped the 
dust off his knees, when the -procession was gone. « M ! la 



44 



PEASANTRY. 



vilaine femme .'" [" Ah ! the vile woman !"] exclaimed a French 
lady of my acquaintance, whom I recognized in the crowd, 
and who, pointing out her forme vfemme de chambre, demurely 
chaunting in the chorus of the confraternity, whispered me 
« Ah ! ma chere, cette femme ne m'« pas laisse un morceau de 
dentelle ; c'est la plus grande voleuse, et la plus grande tracassiere 
du monde : cependant elle contrcj'ait la devote, dans nos nouveau- 
tes religieuses. Jlh I la vUaine femme .'" [« Ah ! my dear, this 
woman has not left me a bit of lace ; she is the greatest thief 
and the greatest cheat in the world, and now since our religi- 
ous change she is acting the devotee. Ah ! the vile woman !"] 
and she repeated her exclamation, as the pious purloiner of 
lace passed close by her. " Voyez done notre grand imbecille de 
maire." [" See our great fool of a mayor,"] said a pretty bour- 
geoise, pinching the arm of the youth she was leaning on, as 
the maires des arrondissemens passed by ; while a man whose 
appearance was not much above that of a water-carrier, ob- 
served aloud, as he stumbled over a kneeling old woman: « Sa- 
cre ! sHls veulent prier Dieu, quHls prient dans leur eglise" [" If 
they must say their prayers let them pray in their church,"] 

While the revival of processions obtains so little popularity 
among the lower classes in the capital, they are looked on with 
at least equal indifference by the peasantry; and the attempts 
made to collect a pious force round the ambulating shrine of a 
village saint, have been found as abortive, in some places, as 
the attempts made in favour of the installation of the « royal 
bust,"* in others. In Boulogne-sur-mer* orders were given for 
a procession in honour of the Virgin, whose wrath, it was de- 
clared, had caused that abundance of rain, which threatened 
ruin to all the vignerons and farmers in France. Some of her 
festivals had not been duly celebrated, since the restoration of 
festivals in France, and a well-founded jealousy had discharged 
itself in torrents of rain, which I had the misfortune to witness, 
during the greater part of my residence in the land of her dis- 
pleasure. The priests, however, of Boulogne to their horror, 
could not find a single Virgin, in that maritime city, to carry in 
procession, and were at last obliged to send a deputation into 

* Several noted /Vtes, and of course several processions, took place at Paris 
while I resided there. The/ete deP Ascension, which was also ihefete de J,ouis 
Treize, [Louis the Thirteenth,] who made a vow to celebrate that day, was very 
fine. The vow ot the royal and pious A'imrod of France, was fulfilled by his 
descendants. The royal family walked upon the occasion ; the princes held up 
the cords of the canopy. It was a singular circumstance, that this day was also 
lafrte de Buonaparte. The procession was attended by the corps municipal and 
state officers, bishops, priests, and royal almoners, and Monsieur Chateaubriand ! 
who seems to let himself ntt, like Ihe mutes of a funeral, for these loyal and 
pious exhibitions. 



PEASANTRY. 45 

a neighbouring village, and request the loan of a Virgin, until 
they could get one of their own. A Virgin was at last procured, 
a little indeed the worse for wear; but this was not a moment 
for fastidiousness. The holy brotherhood assembled, and the 
Madonna was paraded through the streets; but no devout laity 
followed in her train, and no rainbow of promise spoke the 
cessation of her wrath. The people would not walk; the rain 
would not stop; the Virgin was sent back, to pout in her native 
village ; and the miracle expected to be wrought, was strictly 
according to Voltaire's heretical definition of all miracles — "une 
chose qui n'est jamais arrivce." [" a thing which has never hap- 
pened."] 

At the commencement of the revolution, a similar procession 
was madein the neighbourhood of Paris, by the, cure of a village, 
and while lie was moving solemnly under a canopy with the 
shrine of St. Genevieve, the rain fell in such torrents, that 
"sauve qui pent" [•< save himself who can"] was the reigning 
maxim of the moment ; and the officiating minister, left almost 
# alone under his canopy, observed to those who carried it, " mes 
minis, elle croit que c'est la pluie que nous demandons" [" my 
friends, she thinks it is rain we are asking for."] Whether the 
Virgin of Boulogne made the same mistake, it is impossible to 
say ; but certain it is, that the rain continued during the whole 
summer, a punishment to French sinners, and a disappoint- 
ment to English travellers. 

To overload religion with forms and ceremonies, is always 
to injure its cause. Truth wants no ornament; religion is in 
itself an abstraction ; « the evidence of things unseen." It is 
ever to be regretted that the first religious ceremony, mentioned 
in holy w r rit, caused the first murder, in the first and only family 
then upon earth. 

While processions are still but coldly received, images and 
relics have regained but little of their long-lost importance. 
And though they are set up, andi ordered to be worshipped, 
« de par le roi ;" [" by command of the king,"] invested, like 
the priesthood, the cent Suisses, [the hundred Swiss,] and all 
the other appendages of legitimacy, in France, with their for- 
mer dignity and powers ; yet, generally speaking, they exhibit 
a most forlorn and neglected appearance; and, as they stand 
or tumble in their niches, are no bad barometers of the state of 
the rustic piety of the quarter they inhabit. We observed in- 
deed along the high roads of France Madonnas, who had suffered 
in the wars of the revolution, and who still exhibited much of 
the negligence of the republican toilette ; some without a pet- 
ticoat, and others without a nose, while the head of St. Gene- 
vieve, recently placed on the figure of St. Peter (distinguished 



46 • PEASANTRY. 

by bis massive key), and afleur de lis stuck under the stump of 
a broken-armed St. Denis, presented the evidences of days of 
past sacrilege, together with hopes of returning piety. The 
fortune of the saints has long, in France, exclusively depended 
on the rise and fall of the public stock of faith ; and many a 
one, who twenty years hack would not have given an assignat 
for a share in " the whole army of martyrs," is now buying up 
the finger of St. Louis, at any price! 

Wherever the royal family were expected to pass, on the oc- 
casion of the two restorations,, or in their respective journies in- 
to the interior of the kingdom, the via sacra is distinguished by 
the new setting-up of prostrate images, and neglected crosses. 
The crucifix, placed at the port of Dieppe when Madame landed, 
is, I think, for size and colouring, the most formidable image 
that ever was erected to scare, or to edify. And the Madonna 
exhibited in the church of St. Jaques, in the same town, and on 
the same important'occasion, was evidently, in the hurry of the 
unexpected honour, suddenly transported from the bowsprit of 
some English trader ; and had doubtless stood many a hard „ 
gale, as the " lovely Betty" or « sprightly Kitty" before she* 
was removed to receive divine honours, as notre dame de St. Ja- 
ques ; where, dressed in English muslin, and in a coeffure a 
la Chinmse, [ her hair in the Chinese manner,] to show she is 
above prejudice, she takes her place with Louis the Eigh- 
teenth,* who shines in all the radiance of plaster of Paris, on 
an altar beside her. 

In travelling through Normandy, I asked our postillion, why 
he did not salute an image of the Virgin, which, new painted 
and crowned with flowers, stood in a niche by the road side ? — 
He shrugged his shoulders, and replied : "rnais c*est passe, ma- 
dame, tout cela" [« but all that is gone by, madam."] Such I 
believe, generally speaking, is the present state of "graven 
images" and of the religion supported by "graven images," in 
France. * 

Speaking of the peasantry, in the neighbourhood of Ver- 
sailles, Madame de Maintenon observes, <• quandfai roulu sa- 
Voir d'eux, qui a fait le Pater, Us iren savent rien. ' Qui a fait le 
Credo? encore mollis. 8'ils adorent la vierge ? oui: S' its ado- 
rent les saints ? oiu-iia. Si on peche de mdUquer la messe unjonr 
ouvrier? Oui, certes," ["when I asked them who made the 
Lord's prayer, they did not know. Who made the Creed ? — 
they knew still less. II* they adored the virgin ? yes : if they 

* This Virgin, as might be expected, warmly embraces the cause of the 
Bourbon, to whom she owes her elevation, and wears a wreath of lilies, and 
supports the drapeav blcmc, [the white flap: 1 



PEASANTRY. %y 

adored the saints ? oh, yes. If it was a sin to stay from mass 
on working-days ? yes, certainly."] 

Of all the religious grievances, of which the French peasant- 
ry and the labouring classes now complain, as falling the hea- 
viest, the necessity they are under of attending mass, on work- 
ing days, and the strict observance imposed on them, by the 
maires, or magistrates of many of the communes, to religiously 
observe all feasts and festivals, and even certain hours, in par- 
ticular days dedicated to particular saints, on pain of a heavy 
penalty, is the most oppressive. These agents for the revived 
claims of the long-forgotten legion of saints, frequently levy 
their fines, without mercy, on the profane but industrious pea- 
sant, who takes up his spade during the vigil of St. Didymus 9 
©r who plies the wheel, on the feast of St. Catherine. 

Under the reign of Napoleon, idleness met no quarter, even 
though dictated by saints, or enforced by doctrines. Every 
body worked and prayed, according to their vocation, and in- 
terests were not crushed, nor indolence encouraged, under the 
sanction of ceremonies and forms, having no real connexion 
with either faith or reason. I could perceive that the religious 
toleration, enjoyed by the peasantry in common with the rest of 
the population, under his reign, was a subject to them of grate- 
ful remembrance, and they have more than once led to it with 
characteristic traits, that gave them point and interest. 

A peasant woman of some remote province, whom revolu- 
tionary vicissitude had placed in the neighbourhood of the 
village of Sevres, (and who, recommending herself to me as 
« chef d'un-magazinde blanchissage," [" chief of a washing esta- 
blishment,"] thus spared the dignity of my page from the pollu- 
tion of a homelier term for her profession) afforded me infinite 
amusement in her weekly visit to our hotel iii Paris, by the 
quaintness and naivete of her observations. When I beheld 
her from the window, driving up the street in her charctte, [cart,] 
mounted on piles of snowy linen, surrounded by her nymphs, 
guarded by her great dog, and led by her garcon, [boy] I always 
hastened to receive this queen of soap-suds myself, in the anti- 
room, leaving one of her dames de honneur [maids of honour,} 
to arrange the official duties of her calling with my femme-de- 
ehambre, [maid,] in the adjoining apartment. She was a little, 
shrivelled, brown woman, with black petulant eyes and marked 
countenance; and with her scarlet jacket, striped petticoat of 
many breadths, high cornette, [cap,] and massy gold cross and 
ear-rings, she presented a figure and costume, which the very 
genius of masquerade might safely have adopted, both for its 
originality and singular effect. She was always in a flurry, 
always in a passion, always full of news, always full of enriosi- 



48 PEASANTRY. 

ty, and frequently undertook to correct my patois, [bad French,] 
while I should have lamented much, had any one corrected 
her's. When the weather was wet, she dried « lesgilletset ju- 
ponspar artifice, madame /" [•« she dried the waistcoats and pet- 
ticoats artificially !"] She would pardon the king much lor 
giving "lunation une princesse, blanche comme la neige; 99 [«fbr 
giving the nation a princess white as snow ;"] and she called 
her dog « Cleopatra," because she liked the names of great 
men ! — " c'est si beau, cela," [« they are so line."] 

One day, when she was later in her weekly returns than 
usual, she entered my dressing-room, not in the meekness of 
excuse, pleading a fault, but in a passion, perfectly dramatic : 

" £h bien, madame, vous voild pen contente de moi , n'est-ce 
pas ? Eh bien, c 9 est not 9 religion, morbleu, qui se mele de not 9 
blanchissage, voild /" [« Well madam, I suppose you are not 
pleased with me — But 'tis our religion that has interfered with 
our washing!"] 

I could not readily understand what religion had to do with 
her vocation ; I asked what she meant, « Bien, vous allex voir, 
ma petite bonne dame, Cest not 9 gobe-mouche de maire, qui 
nous defend defaire not 9 lavage tel et teijour. C 9 est aujour 9 hut 
la fete de St. Francois, c 9 est demain la veille de St. Ambrose, 
Voila un beau chien de plaisir que d 9 avoir des saints et des 
maires, qui nos dcfendeni de vivre.* Et Men! ma chere dame, 
on a beau crier. Mais voild ceeui !f jamais il ne se meloit de 
not 9 lavage ; jamais ne m 9 -a-t-il dlfendu de secher mes jupons et 
mes gillets tel jour que je voudrois. Cependant, on dit qu 9 il est 
pendu par les Jlnglais — taut pis; bonjour, madame ! 99 \ [« You 
shall see, my dear lady, it is our booby of a mayor, who forbids 
us to Wash on such and such days. To-day is the festival of St. 
Francis, to-morrow the eve of St. Ambrose. It is a charming 
thing to have saints and mayors, who prevent us from earning 
our bread. — But there was he: he never meddled with our wash- 
ing 5 he never hindered me from drying my petticoats and my 

* A fine of fifteen francs is demanded, as a penalty for work done on the jvurs 
tie fete, which are nearly of daily recurrence. Sometimes five fetes occur in 
one week, and a labouring man, who counted them over to me, deplored this 
loss of time and gain as a new and severe grievance. 

f" Celui" ["he, him,"] is the mystic term, by which Buonaparte is now 
mentioned by all the lower classes. I have frequently seen " celui," written 
in all manner of ways, on gates and posts, &c. &.c. 

:(; This reference to my blanchisseuse, resembles the anecdote of the old 
dame, who cursed Colbert every day she made an omelette, because he had put 
a tax upon eggs. I believe, however, there is no question, but that the pea. 
santry have a general preference for Buonaparte. Those of Bourgogne, al- 
ways inclined to revolutionary principles, believed that he was returning intr 
Prance at the head of an army of negroes. It was necessary to deny this, for- 
mally, In that province. 



PEASANTRY. 49 

waistcoats any day I chose. However, they say the English 
have hanged him — So much the worse,* good day madam!"] 

And with this conclusion, which she did not wait to heat* af- 
firmed or denied, she scudded away, indifferent, perhaps, to the 
fate of « celui" or whether he was hanged or not; but taught 
by experience how valuable was the toleration he had establish- 
ed, even to her little interests and comforts, and, like the rest 
of her class, drawing comparisons, under the influence of her 
own feelings, more to his benefit, than to the advantage of those 
who succeeded him. 

While I was in the district of la Beauce, a farmer solicited the 
renewal of a lease, or bailie, which it was in the power of go- 
vernment to grant, through the interest of General de C , 

whose chateau was in the neighbourhood. As he was a man of 
most unblemished character, and the father of a family, his ap- 
plication was attended to. But it having been intimated that 
the farmer had been married during those days of the revolu- 
tion, when the civil contract was a sufficient ratification of the 
marriage vow, it was made a condition for the compliance with 
his request, that he should be married over again by a priest, 
as the government would naturally give a preference to a can- 
didate, who submitted to all the forms and doctrines of the ca- 
tholic church. The farmer replied, that he had been married 
two and twenty years to a very faithful and affectionate wife, 
with whom he had lived in great harmony and happiness; that 
his sons and daughters were growing up around them, and that 
he would not stamp their birth with illegitimacy, nor a virtu- 
ous woman with infamy, by submitting to a second marriage, 
which would naturally invalidate theirs?, though that marriage 
had been celebrated according to the laws of his country then 
existing. " 1 believe, madam," said the ultra-royalist gentle- 
man, who related to me the anecdote a few days after it occur- 
red, and who knew all the parties, « I believe it is not neces- 
sary to give you a stronger instance of the absence of all reli- 
gion among our peasantry of the present day, or of their de- 
generacy from the faith of their forefathers." 

It is curious, however, to observe that some popular super- 
stitions survive the bigotry which once accompanied them, more 
especially in the remote provinces, wherever education has not 
yet made its illuminated progress. 

An eminent physician in Paris, native of les petites Jlpes, a 
mountainous district between Lyons and Geneva, assured me, 
that he had known a young man driven from his village', by the 
odium of belonging to a family accused « d 9 avoir tin nom" 
[•« of having a name,"] which is tantamount to the « evil eye" 
in Ireland. And the conjuror preserving his "magiqut Mane 

H 



50 PEASANTRY. 

et noir," [black and white magic,"] still retains a portion of 
respect, when superstition more imposing, and charlatans more 
dignified, have lost their credit with the people. 

Of this character, once so high in consideration, Rousseau 
has made a charming use in his Devin du Village, [Village 
Conjurer,] and Farquhar a most humourons one, in his Re- 
cruiting Officer. It is thus that genius, among her splendid 
fictions, records the characteristic traits of ages and nations ; 
and registering facts which the chronicler neglects as notori- 
ous, and the historian overlooks as undignified, preserves em- 
balmed the most interesting features of humanity, for the con- 
templation of the philosopher, and the instruction of posterity. 
The catalogue of popular superstitions is neither very exten- 
sive nor very various, and presents nearly the same images in 
all countries. Melancholy sounds breathed at melancholy hours 
will always be portentous to ignorance ; and fear will ever ex- 
ert its most harassing dominion over the imagination, in sea- 
sons of sorrow and affliction. Thus, in France as in England, 
the howl of a dog at the cottage of the dying peasant, is more 
certain death than the disease which kills him. And the Irish 
henshi has her pendant [counterpart] in the French owl, which 
is always considered " oiseau de manvais augure" [" bird of 
ill-omen,''] when she sends forth her midnight screams near 
the chamber of the sick. A goat in the stable is esteemed, in 
France, a sure protection from contagion to the cattle with 
which it associates, and ranks most probably with tiie bracket- 
hen, which, in Ireland, holds so distinguished a place among 
the lares and penates of the cottage hearth. 

*********** 
« Je veux que le moindre paysan mette une poule dans le pot, les 
dimanches." [" I wish that the poorest peasant may have a fowl 
to put in the pot, every Sunday,"] is a saying of Henri IV. 
which has rendered his memory more precious in France than 
all he has ever said or done beside. And this simple and bene- 
volent «je veux" [" wish"] will perhaps survive in the memory 
of the nation, when the pretty "mots de sentiment" ["senti- 
mental sayings,"] which royal eloquence is now made to utter, 
shall be forgotten, or remembered only to be reprobated as the 
jargon of insincerity, dictated by bad taste. Henry IV.* did 
not live to sec this philanthropic wish accomplished : and whether 
his great views, and those of his able minister, would finally 
have produced such an effect among their other happy conse- 

* When the death of Henry IV. was known to the people of Paris, nothing 
was heard, on every .side, but cues of " nous avons perdu notre pe're." ["we have 
lost our father."] 



PEASANTRY. $± 

quenees, the spirit of religious fanaticism that cut short the days 
of France's best king, has left it impossible to ascertain. 

It must, however, be a source of infinite satisfaction to his 
descendants, to find, on their return to the government of their 
kingdom, that the prayer of their great grandsire is accom- 
plished, and that "le moindre paijsan" not only « met une poule 
dans lepot, les dimanches," [" the poorest peasant not only puts 
a fowl in the pot on Sunday,' 1 ] but even puts a little flesh meat 
into his marmite, [soup-pan,] on week-days. To the enjoy- 
ment of this luxury, under the reign of Louis XIV. and his im- 
mediate successors, there were two insurmountable barriers — 
the taxes of the taille and of the gabelle. The mode of dividing 
and subdividing the taille, was among its greatest grievances. 
When the minister of finance demanded a certain sum for the 
exigences of a war, or the expenses of building or adorning a 
palace for the king, or his mistresses,* (and these palaces rose 
like the fairy castles, which the incantations of magic conjure 
into existence) the tax imposed on the kingdom was subdivided, 
according to the superior interest of the nobility at court, who 
were governors of the provinces.! This partial division, by 
which the impost always fell lightest on those most able to bear 
its infliction, was again followed by a more partial subdivision, 
until at last the burthen was thrown almost exclusively upon 
those unprotected individuals who were at the mercy of the great 
man, or the great man 9 s great man, in every town or parish. The 
governors, who imitated in their provincial courts the splendor 
and extravagance of the king, purchased their magnificence, and 
preserved their situations, by exactions and extortions which some 
times drove the people to insurrection. The memory of the Duke de 
Richelieu is still execrated in the province he governed, in the reign 

* Beside the continual repairs and decorations made in the palaces of Fon- 
tainbleau, St. Germain, en Laye, St. Cloud, Meudon, Compiegne, and Cham- 
bord, the most ancient of the royal palaces, there have been raised, since the 
reign of Louis XIV. Versailles, Marli, the Great and Little Trianon, Clugny, 
Maintenon, (upon the aqueducts of which such large sums were expended, as 
excited a general murmur against its lady), Bellevue, (constructed for Mad. de 
Pompadour), Luciennes, for Mad du Baity, and Bagatelle, built by the Count 
d'Artois, (for a wager) within six weeks. To these expensive palaces, meant 
solely to vary the pleasures of the king and his mistresses, must be added St. 
Cyr, unquestionably established as a palace of retreat, for the authoress of the 
dragonades and massacres of the Cevennes. 

"f" lis examinerent, comment il seroit possible d'augmenter sourdement les 
aides, la gabelle, et autres impots. Quand tout etoit arrange, dans le secret, 
avec les sang-sues publiques, les interresses appuyoient les projects au conseil, 
et les faisoient passer. — Intrig^ie da Cabinet, vol. i. p. 244. 

[They examined, how it would be possible to increase secretly the excise, 
the salt-tax and other imposts. When all was arranged, in private, with the 
public blood-suckers, the interested pressed their plans on the council, and 
had them carried into effect.] 



5g PEASANTRY. 

of Louis XV. Even the friends of the Duke de Chaulnes have 
left, in their private correspondences, such testimonies of his 
atrocious conduct in Bretagne, (under Louis XIV.) as consigns 
this otherwise obscure and mediocre person to eternal ignominy.* 
" On a fait une tax: de cent mllle ecus sur les bourgeois ; [«• they 
have laid a tax of a hundred thousand crowns on the citizens,"] 
(says Mad. de Sevigne, speaking of the capital of la Bre- 
tagne, and of the disturbances occasioned by its taxes and the op- 
pressions of its governor) et si on ne trouve point cette somme 
dans vingt quatre heures* elle sera doublee, et exigible par les 
soldats. On a chasse et banni toute une grande rue, et defendu 
de les recueillir. sur peine de la vie ; de sorte qu'on voyoit tons 
ces miserables, femmes accouchees, viellards, enjans, errer en 
pleurs an sortir de cette ville. (Bennes) sans savoir oil alter 9 
sans avoir de nourriture, ni de quoi se coucher. On a pris soix- 
ante bourgeois , on commence demain a pendre. Cette province 
est un bet exemple pour les autres, et sur tout de respecter les 
gouverneurs, et les gouvernantes, de ne point leur dire d 9 injures 9 
et de ne point leurjeter des pierres dans leur jar dins, Les puni- 
tions et les taxes ont He cruelles ; il-y-auroit des\ histoires tra~ 
giques a vous conter, d 9 ici a demain, [and if that sum is not 
raised in twenty-four hours, it will be doubled, and exacted by 
the soldiers. The whole inhabitants of a long street have been 
driven away, and forbidden to return, on pain of death — so that 
we have seen all these poor creatures, women, old men and chil- 
dren wandering in tears, about the environs of the city (Rennes) 

* The duke de Richelieu, speaking" of his government of Guienne, observes 
that he could do there what he liked, " on personne n'osevuit lid nendire, etant bien 
avec lemaltre Louis XV," [" where no one dared to oppose him, as he was in 
favour with the master Louis XV."] His cruelty and exactions nearly pro- 
duced an insurrection in the province, and finally caused the suppression of the 
parliament of Bourdeaux. It was upon this occasion, that Louis XV. made 
profession defoi, [profession of faith,] on the subject of divine right. " Je leur 
ferai voir (~ks parlemens,J que je ne tiens monpouvoir que de Dieu ; qveje rCiu de 
compte d rendre qifti lui, el que personne ne doit s'opposer a ma volontc fP* [" I will 
let them see (the parliaments) that I hold my power from God only; that I 
am accountable to him alone, and no one shall dare to oppose my will?"] How 
little he then suspected, that this divine right would not only be questioned, 
but denied to his unfortunate successor! In 1789, it was proposed in the Nation- 
al Assembly to give Louis XVI. the title of" Roi dea FraiKjais, par le conseutt- 
mentde la nation" ["King of the French, by consent of the nation,"] and to 
suppress the formula, " par la grace de Dieu" ["by the grace of God."] It 
was upon this occasion that J J etiu» exclaimed, " c'est calomnier Dieu/ Charles 
IX. etoit-il anss'i roi, par la grace de Dieu ?" [" this is calumniating God ! Charles 
the IX. was also king by the grace of God !"] 

-fit was in this moment of national suffering, when vhese cruel exactions 
•were made on the people, thatMad.de Montespan was raising her superb pa- 
lace of Clugny. The disturbances of la Bretagpie were perhaps the first throes 
of the great, convulsions, wiiich followed long* after; they proceeded at least 
from the same cause. 



PEASANTRY. 53 

without knowing where to go, without food, and without lodg- 
ing. Sixty citizens have been taken up, and to-morrow they 
will begin to hang them. This province should be an example 
to the others, to respect the governors, and the governesses, to 
say nothing against them, and not to throw stones into their 
gardens. The taxes and the punishments have been cruel 1 
there will be tragical stories to tell you after to-morrow.] 

Tragical indeed! for twelve men were broken alive upon the 
wheel, suspected of having conspired against the life of the all- 
powerful governor, who had thus goaded into madness a sim- 
ple people, which could scarcely speak any language to be un- 
derstood. Mad. de Sevigne drops this dreadful topic, to give 
the history of her pretty dog, « Sylphide, blond commeun blond- 
in;" [" Sylphide, as white as a flaxen-haired beau;"] for such 
was the character of the times — cruelty and frivolity — the af- 
fectation of sentiment, and the absence of sensibility! 

If the taille was one reason, why the peasant, drained to the 
last farthing of his earnings, could not conveniently put « his 
chicken into the pot," the gabelle was another. And it was 
in such times that the French peasant, like the modern Greeks 
under the Turkish despotism, concealed any little hoard they 
might have amassed, and lived in seeming wretchedness, to es- 
cape those exactions, which would have rendered their poverty 
real, had it been discovered or suspected. 

But no taille, no gabelle now exists, and the French peasant 
is at last enabled to « mettre la poule dans lepot, les dimanches," 
[" put a chicken in the pot on Sunday."] How long, however, 
this privilege, this luxury, may be retained, it is for the advo- 
cates of " le bon vieux terns 9 '' [" the good old time"] to declare. 

The peasant's table, in France, is of course regulated by his 
circumstances, and by the nature and soil of his native pro- 
vince. But from all I could learn, from persons of all ranks 
and all parties,* plenty, even to abundance, has hitherto been 
found among this class, and has been interrupted only by 
the ravages lately made on their property by the armies of 
almost every nation in Europe. The presence of these armies 
caused enormous losses to the proprietors of vineyards, parti- 
cularly in the south, where the vines were wantonly torn up by 
the roots. In the pasturage districts or provinces, they make, 
of their laitage 9 [milk,] a principal article of food, under the 

* I asked a royalist, who has a considerable landed property, whether his 
tenants could afford to eat meat often in the week ? He answered me with pe- 
tulance, " and why not?" " But (I said) it was not always so before the revo- 
lution." "Eh! maisnon" ["Eh! indeed! no."] And he shrugged his should- 
ers, and hemmed and finished with the usual ; " Mais, que voukz-vous ?" [" But 
what would you have."] 



54j peasantry. 

form of cheeses, cpeam cakes, and porridges ; but I observed 
that in France milk was rarely taken in its simple state, as 
among our peasantry. In Normandy, the farms are all well 
stocked with cows. In the Isle of France, this useful animal 
is so scarce, that in many places the goafs milk is exclusively 
used, and is even occasionally made into cheese. 

The peasantry, for the most part, take four meals a-day : a 
very slight breakfast when they rise, which is generally of thin 
soup ; the grand dejeune [breakfast] at 1 1 o'clock, (which is in fact 
their dinner ;) their goiite, or sort of luncheon, of raw vegeta- 
bles and bread and butter ; and their supper, which generally 
consists of meat and vegetables, (as at their dinners) made into 
a ragout. Light wine and water is their* general drink : a be- 
verage produced from chesnuts, and cider is also occasionally 
used, but are neither of them held in estimation by the "verita- 
bles Amphytrions" [" true Amphytrions"] of rural savoir vivre- 
« Une petite goutte de liqueur," [«A little drop of liquor"] is a 
delicacy to which they are no strangers, while every village 
guinguette [tavern] supplies an imitation of that foreign luxury, 
"la bonne double Mere deMars" ["the good double March beer,"] 
which is of the same quality of that very worst beverage, the 
w poor creature, small beer," in England. 

*********** 

Hospitality is the virtue of semi-civilized nations. It is a 
resource against the tedium of ignorance and inanity ; and none 
think it " greater solitude to be alone," than those, who are 
the least qualified to contribute to social enjoyment. The 
French peasantry are said to have been more hospitable* in 
their days of profound ignorance and extreme poverty, than in 
their present improved condition. It is also certain that there 
are much fewer calls upon this virtue, (if it be one) than there 
formerly must have been, when poverty was the vow, and beg- 
gary the profession of a large class of the people. The cater- 
ing friar, the mendicant monk, the wandering pilgrim, no longer 
present themselves at the cottage-door, to cherish a spirit of 
hospitality, through the medium of a mistaken charity, or un- 
der the influence of a powerful bigotry. Competency is also so 
equally distributed, and industry so well rewarded, that few 
are urged by want or idleness to put their neighbour's genero- 
sity to the test; and curiosity, that insatiable appetite, which so 
often makes the stranger's welcome, has been, during the last 
years, fed to surfeit, by the fluctuating crowds which have pas- 
sed from all nations before the door of the French cottage. The 
droits-rkmis have likewise proved a check to the exercise of this 
primitive virtue; for the hope of selling "le petit pot de rm," 



PEASANTRY. gg 

["the little jug of wine"] under the rose,* no longer secures to 
the traveller a »• collation" along with it. 

*********** 

" Tout pays, oil la mendicite est une profession, estmal-gouvrne,' 7 
[«« Every country where mendicity is a profession, must be 
badly governed,"] says Voltaire. I should suppose, from my 
own observations, that the country in the world the most infec- 
ted by mendicity is Ireland ; and the country the least taxed 
with tiiis disgusting and always vicious branch of community, 
is France. The whole of this order, now existing there, may 
be comprised in those little groups of cripples, which neither 
disgust by filth, nor annoy by importunity ; and which, gather- 
ing round the traveller's carriage on the high roads, quietly 
detail the inflictfon, which induces them to interest the benevo- 
lence of the » tres charitable monsieur" [" most charitable mon- 
sieur.''] i* C'est une rente incontestable" [" It is an incontesta- 
ble truth,"] says Chamfort, speaking of the state of France, on 
the eve of the revolution, "quil-ij-a en France sept millions 
d 9 hommes 9 qui demandent Uaumone, et denize millions, hors d'etat 
de la leur faire," [«« that there are in France seven millions of 
people who ask charity, and twelve millions who are not able to 
bestow it."] 

This frightful picture of national poverty is corroborated by 
Mr. Young, who made his second tour to France at this period, 
and who observes that the original sin of its institutions struck 
at the root of national prosperity, and produced a poverty, that 
"reminded him of Ireland." The improved condition of the 
lower classes has had an inevitable influence on the evil of 
mendicity, and the hopes of idleness and imposture were finally 
crushed by the laudable efforts of the Comte de Pontcoulant.f 
This gentleman began his salutary reforms upon the class of 
faiueans, during his prefectship at Brussels, and receiving the 
sanction and assistance of the imperial government, drove the 
young and indolent into the workshops and manufactories, and 
placed the old and infirm in asylums and hospitals. How far 
the revival of old institutions, the return of the religious orders, 
and the encouragement of religious houses, may have an effect 
upon this suppressed class, it is impossible to say; or whether 

* Passing by a little guinguette, in la Brie, I perceived written over the door 
in French, as old as the Romance of the Rose, the first line of Rosalind's epilogue, 
** Good wine needs no bush." The proverb, therefore, was common to both 
countries. 

j- The Comte de P distinguished himself in the revolution. Loaded 

with honours by Napoleon, he was made count of the empire, peer, senator, 
and commandant of the legion of hononr. 



5g PEASANTRY. 

some future preacher in the pulpit of St. Leu, or St. Gilles,* 
may not give a new impulse to his flocks, and again address to 
them the words humourously attributed to the ancient cure of 
that parish — « mes chers gueux, qui risque* les galeres 9 en pass- 
ant votre vie a mendier, entrez dans Pun des quatre ordres men- 
dians 9 vous sere* riches et honores" [" my dear beggars, who 
in passing your life in begging run the risque of the gallies — - 
enter into one of the four orders of mendicant friars, then you 
will be rich and honoured."] 

The virtue of charity therefore, like that of hospitality, lies 
at present latent, for want of objects to call it into action. But 
if latent, it is not dead. There is no nation more strongly en- 
dowed with that physical sensibility, which promptly responds 
to the cry of suffering, and which awakens that ready and un- 
calculating sympathy, " whose pity gives, ere charity begins." 
The readiness with which an orphan, or unprovided child (the 
illustre maiheureux [the illustrious unfortunate] of some village 
or hamlet) is adopted by a friendly neighbour or benevolent re- 
lative, is a proof that charity wants neither the means, nor the 
feeling to bestow its relief, when circumstances call upon its 
exertion. 

Country girls and children, without shoes or stockings; 
things calling themselves women, but in reality " walking dung- 
hills -" and "ploughmen at. work, without sabots, [shoes.] or 
feet to their stockings,"f are details given by a liberal English 
traveller of the state of the French peasant's wardrobe, in the 
year 1788. Still, however, even then, the French peasant had 
his « ha,bit-de-fete," [" holiday dress,''] like the Irish cotter, 
who appears in the tattered garments of misery all the week, 
to be enabled to exhibit his blue fnze cota-more, and best 
brogues, at the Sunday ** pattern," or yearly fair. 

There is an intimate connexion between vanity and poverty. 
Ostentation is the legitimate offspring of both. The peasant 
toilette of France now extends itself to the every-day comforts 
of working apparel. During my residence there, I did not see 
one instance of a bare-footed, or bare-legged person, not even 
among the children ; and " etre Men chaussee" [** to be well- 
drest about the feet,"] seems a passion in France, from the 
petlte-maitresse in her cob-web " bas de coton" [cotton stock- 
ings,"] at thirty francs a pair, down to the demoiselle Georgette, 
who draws her " bas de laine" [" worsted hose"] tightly over 
the smart ankle she has no objection to exhibit. 

* Formerly noted, as the parishes of connnihionnaires and beggars. 

■j- This partial covering of the leg is universal among" the peasantry of Ire- 
land, at this day, under the name of " traheens" And " I do at upon your tra- 
heens," is a phrase of endearment, commonly used as indicating "Idoat upon 
the most miserable article about you." 



PEASANTRY. 57 

The details of dress, among the peasants, appear to vary in 
every province, and to rule in each with a precise and unde- 
viating uniformity. One bright colour may be seen glowing 
through a whole commune, and one stripe maintains its supre- 
macy over the petticoats of an entire arrondissement. Thus, 
« un gros rouge" [" a full red"] is the delight of the dames of 
Auvergne, and « un bleu celeste" [" celestial blue"] the passion 
©f the elegantes of Limousin. 

In passing through Picardy and Artois, I observed that, 
while the old women preserved the lofty comette [cornet] of 
ancient times, the young had adopted the high mitred coeffure 
[head dress] of the Chinese modes ; a fashion which, though long 
passe in Paris, the hostess of an auberge where we stopped in 
Abbeville assured me w r as in her town « une nouveaute la plus 
nouvelle" [« a novelty the most novel."] In general, however, 
caps with immense borders, that sweep below the shoulders, 
and straw hats, are the prevailing head-dresses upon all occa- 
sions. The petticoat and corset, almost invariably of two dis* 
tinct colours, relieved with white sleeves, of linen, or woollen 
web : gold chains round the neck, fastened with a heart, and 
suspending a large gold cross, are elegancies of the toilette 
scarcely ever dispensed with upon any occasion, and are fre* 
quently worn even upon working days. 

The district of the Couchois is the very foyer of the Normandy 
fashions, and a fair Couchoise, perfectly « endimanchee" or at- 
tired in her Sunday finery, exhibits a complexity of costume, 
to which many centuries must have lent their progressive in- 
ventions, which probably began under William the Conqueror, 
and received its last finishing touches on the arrival of Madame* 
at Dieppe. The cap of the fashionable Cauchoise emulates, in 
height, the steeple of the church, which is the mart of her finery; 
her luxe dejupe [profusion of petticoat] is typical of its dimen- 
sions, and the pendulum of its clock is rivalled in the enormous 
gold drops, which vibrate in either ear. 

It is curious to observe, that such nearly was the dress of the 
better order of dames, in the days of Charles IX. and that the 
peasantry were, under his cruel and bigoted reign, better clad 
and better conditioned, than under that of Louis XV. « AH," 
(says an author, whose researches into the ancient costumes of 
France are extremely profound) « all the peasantry then wore 
" des soldiers commodes," [« comfortable shoes $"] but this was 

* When Mad. d'Angouleme landed a second time in France at Dieppe, all 
the old poissardes [fisliwomen] and ancient dames of the town, dressed in full 
costume, went down to the port to receive her royal highness, and insisted ©a 
drawing- her carriage to the town-house. 

I 



58 PEASANTRY. 

not the case, under the reign of " le Men aime," [« the beloved."] 
The taxation, which went in part to supply the toilettes of Du- 
barry, et de Pompadour, naturally limited the elegancies of the 
peasant wardrobe, and even obtruded upon its necessaries, as 
Mr. Young's " moving dunghills/'' at that period, evince. 

The influence of the toilette is universal in France, and it is 
far from being exclusively an object of female devotion, even 
among the peasantry. The young farmer "que se fait brave/ 9 
[« who makes himself smart"] is, in his own estimation, as at- 
tractive as any merveilleux [wonder] of the chaussee D'Jlntin 
can suppose himself. His well-powdered head and massive 
queue, his round hat, drawn up at either side, "pour faire le 
monsieur "["to look like a gentleman"] his large silver buckles, 
and large silver watch, with his smart white calico jacket and 
trowsers, present an excellent exhibition of rural coxcombry, 
while the elders of the village set off their frieze coats with a 
fine flowered linen waistcoat, whose redundancy of flaps ren- 
ders the texture of the nether part of their dress very unim- 
portant. 

But, however tasteless or coarse, however simple or gro* 
tesque, the costume of the French peasantry may appear to the 
stranger's eye, it still is a costume 1 it is a refinement on neces- 
sity, and not the mere and meagre covering of shivering na- 
ture. It is always one, among many evidences, that the people 
are not poor, are not uncivilized, that they require the decen- 
cies of life, and are competent to purchase them. — When an 
Irish peasant, with his usual shrewdness, endeavours to drive a 
hard bargain with his employer, his phrase is frequently : — 
" Sure, all I ask is just what will get me my bit, and my rag ; n 
for all his ideas of dress consist in the words " my rag" These 
.are painful references ! they are perhaps too foreign, and too 
frequent; but they are irresistible ! Oh ! where is the land so 
distant, the region so remote, into which I may travel, and not 
bear Ireland in my memory, and her misery in my heart ! And, 
oh ! when shall the pen, now employed in tracing the pros- 
perity and civilization of another country, be devoted to record 
the improvement, the tranquillity and happiness of my own ! — 
When shall it leave the fictions, which have been made the 
medium for exhibiting the causes of her errors and her suf- 
ferings, to register the facts which shall prove, that the first 

are removed, and the last are forgotten ! 

*********** 

On our way to France, we had taken a very circuitous route, 
and passed through a great part of England. We found the 
beautiful peasant population of that country, with its fair trail- 



PEASANTRY &Q 

quil Saxon physiognomy, transparent complexion, and rounded 
muscle, a dangerous preparative for eyes destined to meet a 
people, whose beauty can scarcely be reckoned among their 
national perfections. The French face, particularly among 
the lower orders, struck me forcibly, as having a general re- 
semblance to the Tartar visage. The high but flattened cheek- 
bone, small eye, low forehead, with the close concentration of 
the features, formed a very prevalent cast of countenance, in 
such of the provinces as I visited. There are, however, even 
among the lowest classes, some very splendid exceptions to this 
general line of physiognomy, and I think the two handsomest 
men I ever saw, were a miller, near Amiens, and a workman, 
at the manufactory of porcelain at Chantilty, well known in 
his native town by the distinguishing appellation of "/e bel 
ouvrier" ["the handsome workman."] It was in vain he showed 
us the Majesty of France smiling, with his " sourire paternel" 
[" paternal smile,'*] on a tea cup ; or the royal dukes and 
duchesses smirking in family amity, on a punch bowl. We 
still thought the workman superior to his work, and he indeed 
seemed perfectly of our opinion ; for no " heros d'operd" 
[*« opera hero"] ever played off the graces of attitude with a 
more studied or ridiculous effect, than did le bel ouvrier de Chan- 
titty, [the handsome workman of Chantilly,] for the benefit 
and admiration of the English visitants of his manufactory. 

The French physiognomy, however, varies almost in every 
province, and they themselves class the shades of beauty and 
ugliness with great precision, even in the neighbouring districts, 
by the term " beau sang," and " vilain sang," [" handsome 
blood,'* and " ugly blood."] This singular phraseology assimilates 
with what may be called the elegant slang of English bon-ton, 
which by introducing the pedantry of the stable into the jargon 
of the drawing-room, enables the connoisseur in beauty and 
horse-flesh equally to compliment "Thunderbolt by Vixen," 
and Lady Virginia, descended from a Plantagenet duchess, 
with the common declaration that they are both " thorough- 
bred," and " show excellent blood." 

In the pays de Beauce the " vilain sang" is said to prevail ; 
in its neighbouring district, la Perche, the " beau sang'' 9 is very 
distinguishable. In Normandy, the land of law, and loveliness, 
the beauty of some of the women rivals the charms of the 
witches of Lancashire ; and every where among the girls are 
to be met charming samples of "lajolie" that indefinite style 
of prettiness, which the French prefer to every other, and 
which, by them at least, is deemed "plus belle que la beaute 
meme" [" more beautiful even than beauty.''] The Bearnois, 
the native province of Henri IV. is celebrated for the beauty 



6Q PEASANTRY. 

of its inhabitants, and particularly for the elegance, form, ra- 
pidity of motion, and grace of gesture of its Basques, a race 
of peasantry in one of its districts, whom it is the pride of the 
Provengale noblesse to bring into their family, as upper servants, 
and to exhibit in their saloons, at Paris, as pages, dressed in 
their own original and beautiful costume. 

I one day accompanied the Princess de Craon* to the hotel 
de Biron- G-onteau, and was in the formal act of presentation 
to the Duchess de Biron, when a figure suddenly appeared in 
the garden pavilion in which we were received, which cut short 
my half-finished courtesy, and rendered even the amiable du- 
chess, with her historical name, an object, for the moment, 
of secondary consideration. While Madame de Biron was 
saying the most obliging things in the world, and in the most 
obliging manner, and while I, "nothing loth," lent " a pleas- 
ed ear," my eyes pursued though with some difficulty) the flit- 
ting motion of a light aerial figure, elegant and fanciful as the 
poet's image of *« a feathered Mercury." This splendid appa- 
rition, in a costume singular and picturesque, passed through 
the pavilion into the garden. «* C'est le Basque de maclame la 
duchesse^ et dans le costume de son pays." [" It is the Basque of 
the duchess, and in the dress of his country,"] said the Prin- 
cess de Craon, observing the impression which this "fair 
page" had made on me. — »< Courir comme un Basque, est un pro- 
verbe de Provence," ["To run like a Basque is a Provence pro- 
verb,"] added the princess, " et vous voyez, qu'il ne le dement 
pas" [« and you see he does not belie it."] He was at that mo- 
ment tiitting among the trees of the garden, with the arrow-like 
swiftness attributed to the Hirkahs, or public messengers of 
Hindostan. 

We afterwards adjourned to the terrace of the garden, which 
overlooked the boulevard ltalien, through which the royal cor- 
tege [train] was passing (for it was the entree of the young 
Duchess de Berri, into Pai4s,) and the Comte de H — e, who 
accompanied us, took infinite pains to name to me the distin- 
guished persons, who preceded, followed, and surrounded the 
caleche [chariot] of the king, including the marshal Marmont, 
M. Talleyrand, Pere Eiisee, et tutti quanti. But still the beau- 
tiful Basque, and his beautiful costume, were to me ohjects of 
greater attraction than all the grandeurs, which followed in the 
suite of the royal bride. 

* To this venerable and excellent lady, whose high birth is among- the least 
of her merits, and indeed to almost every member of huf illustrious family, I 
stand indebted for the most flattering- attentions, and for much of the social 
pleasures I enjoyed, during- my residence at Paris. 



PEASANTRY. 6i 

She herself, I thought, looked pale and timid ; and rather 
stunned than delighted by the loyal acclamations which rent 
the air from voices, which perhaps had recently given their 
"vivas" to a very different entree; — while the countenance of 
the Duchess d'Angouleme, more in distrust than in timidity, 
seemed such as she might have worn, when evincing her con- 
tempt of the national instability to her cause, she boldly an- 
swered to the often prostituted « nous jurons," [« we swear."] 
« Swear not, but obey." It was. indeed a countenance more in 
anger, than in "sorrow" or in joy, and the very reverse of that 
of the *< buried Majesty of Denmark ;" — though that royal per- 
sonage also evinced rather a « legitimate" taste for retribution, 
and was not averse to plunging his country in civil dissention, 
to avenge his own private wrongs, and satisfy his own private 
feelings. 

If the peasantry of France are not all Basques, their defect 
of beauty does not arise from deficiency of nourishment ; for I 
do not think I ever saw a greater number of persons, who seem- 
ed sent into the world, «* pour f aire voir jusqu'oii pent alter la peau 
humaine" ["to shew how far the human skin may be stretched."] 
w Le bon gros pere" m la bonne grosse-mere" [" The good fat 
father," » the good fat mother,"] are epithets frequently used 
and justly applied, and the old phillippics of frogs and soupe- 
maigre now fall hurtless against ribs, deep in their covering, 
as any of the best new light prizes exhibited at the Woburn 
shows. Among this order, indeed, Miss Prescott, the Pytho- 
ness of English embonpoint, might acquire new hints for her 
science of anti-phthisis, and apply them for the benefit of mea- 
gre dowagers and attenuated young ladies, with successful ef- 
fect. 

The improved condition of the French peasantry has indeed 
operated with equal benefit, morally and physically. The de- 
structions of the feudal system, with all its oppressive train of 
taxes and imposts, has produced a national regeneration. — 
Even the despotic laws of the conscription, which peopled the 
armies of France by means even more odious than the press- 
gang system of England, has been counteracted in its effects, 
and repaired in its losses, by the ameliorated state of the peo- 
ple, by the division of the enormous landed properties, the 
equal participation in succession, and by the great encourage- 
ment given to the progress of vaccine innoculation.* 

* The French army was essentially national, since by the law of the con- 
scription it was composed of all the citizens, without distinction of class. This 
was the secret which filled up the fallen ranks of the French legions, and 
which reconciled the lower classes so patiently to its infliction. It was on 



fig PEASANTRY. 

In 1T81 the controlear -general [comptroller general] of 
France, under Louis XVI. Monsieur My de Fleuri, defined 
** the people" of France, to be <* peuple serf* corveable, et tailla- 
Ue 9 a merci et misericorde" [« a slavish people excisable and 
taxable, without mercy or pity."] It was the misery of this 
"peuple serf" that urged the cause of the revolution ; it was 
this " peuple corveable et taillable. a merci et miscricorde," who 
showed no mercy for their heartless oppressors. It was this 
race of slaves, degraded, trodden on, broken down, strangers 
to liberty, to morals, and to religion, who were urged to com- 
mit those horrors, for which they are so unjustly upbraided, 
and whose national mildness and natural goodness of dis- 
position might well yield to the temptation of satisfying a 
vengeance, which the wrongs and slavery of ages had ripen- 
ed, nourished, and fomented into madness. 

But that long-enduring race have now passed away; their 
children are proprietors, where they were vassals. The tor- 
ture no longer exists, to feed a spirit of brutal ferocity by its 
horrible exhibitions. Bigotry no longer presents to them idle 
forms for real principles ; they have nothing to fear from the 
" droit de chasse" the " corvee" the « taille" the " gabelle." 
They have tasted a practical freedom, not less perhaps than that 
enjoyed by the people of England ; they are moral as the peo- 
ple of Scotland; and notwithstanding the recent ravages, they 
are more prosperous perhaps than either. Oh ! may they long 
continue so ; and in spite of that « scourge ojjire"* with which 

the higher classes it fell with the greatest severity, if indeed the gentry of 
France ever had any profession but that of arms, or any object of ambition but 
military glory. 1 asked the wife of a farmer in the Isle of France, who had 
lost a son by the conscription, whether she did not rejoice in the downfall of 
him, who had instituted that despotic law ? "Pour celui." [" He,"] she replied, 
" il nous a fait trop de mal, pour que nous disions du bien de lui ; mais il nous 
a fait trop de bien, pour que nous en disions du mal," [" he has done us so much 
harm, that we cannot speak well of him ; but he has done us so much good, 
that we ought not to sp'eak ill of him."] And this, I believe, is the sentiment 
of the nation. 

* I copy here a paragraph from a letter, which I have this day received (De- 
cember 29th, 1816) from Paris, from a gentleman of considerable talent and 
experience, in the present state of things in France, *' Votre Canning a tenu 
ici des propos d'un ton, qui n'etoit pas propre a rapprocher lesdeux nations, 
et qui sont bien inconsideres pour un homrae d'etat. II dit, il-y-a quelque 
terns, dans un cercle nombreux, ou ctoient beaucoup de militaires nouveaux, 
que le gouvernement des Bourbons etoit trop doux pourune nation, aussi tur- 
bulent etaussifactieuse que la notre. Mais que l'Angleterre se chargeoitde 
nous tenir sous une verge de feu ! Les militaires n'ont rien dit, et Mad. de Stael 
s'est chargee seule de rcpondre a ccs insolences." [" Your Canning has ex- 
pressed himself here in a tone which ought not be held between the two na- 
tions, and which is very inconsiderate for a statesman. A short time since, he 
said in a numerous circle, where there were a number of the new military, 



PEASANTRY. (53 

an English minister is said lately to have threatened them, may 
they boldly resent and timely oppose every effort made by do- 
mestic oppression or foreign invasion, which may tend to bring 
them back to that state in which they were declared, by the law 
of the land, to be "unpeupleserf, corveable et taillable, a merci 
et a misericorde .'" 

that the government of the Bourbons was too mild for a nation so turbulent and 
factious as ours. But that England would take care to keep us under a scourge 
of fire. The military men said nothing, and Madame de Stael alone replied to 
his insolence."] 

" Comme M. Canning parloit des victoires, que les Anglais avoient rempor- 
tees, elle lui dit, que si ces messieurs vouloient une seule fois se detacher des 
Russes, des Prussiens, des Allemands, &c. &c. &c. et nous honorer d'une tete- 
fi-tete, elle lui promettoit de n'etre pas refuse ! [" As Mr. Canning spoke of 
the victories which the English had achieved, she told him that if they would 
once detach themselves from the Russians, Prussians, Germans, &c. &c. &c. and 
propose to honour us with a tete-a-tete, she could promise they would not be 
refused !"] " Notre Canning" made himself extremely popular among the roy- 
edistes enrages, [furious royalists,] when I was in France, by his speech at Bour- 
deaux, in which he called that loyal city " le temple de xWadame," [" the temple 
of Madame"] (the duchess of Angouleme.) For many evenings successively 
I never entered any of the saloons of my royalist friends, that this " mot de senti- 
ment" [" piece of sentiment,"] was not echoed about in all sorts of maudlin, 
whining tones — " Le temple de Madame! ! Ah que c'est joli! Le T-e-m-ple de 
Madame ! Mais c'est charmant, c'est beau." [" The temple of Madame ! AJi! 
how pretty ! The temple of Madame — 'tis charming, 'tis beautiful."] 

" On -voit Men, madame" said a royalist to me, who had repeated this mot de sen- 
timent upon every change and key of the sentimental gamut, « on voit bien, ma- 
dame, que voire Canning est un homme a sentiment, avec infiniment d'esprit! 
Le temple de madame ! Ah que c'est beau /" [" It is easy to see madam that youti 
Canning is a man of sentiment, with an infinitude of wit ! The temple of Ma- 
dame—Ah! how fine !"1 



FRANCE. 



BOOK II. 

Society, 



" A mesure que la philosophic fait des progre"s, la sottise redouble les ef- 
forts pour etablir l'enipire des prejuges." 



National Characteristics. — Sketch of Manners, before the Revolu- 
tion. — During the Revolution. — Under the Imperial Government. 
Actual State of Society and Manners, in France. — " The Chil- 
dren of the Revolution." — Royalists. — Ultra-Royalists. — Consti- 
tutionalists, and Buonapariists. — Conversation. — Raconteurs. — > 
Political Vaudevilles. — Tone of the Circles. — French Youth.'-' 
The EUve of the Polytechnic School.— -Religious Institutions.— 
School of Ecouen. 

NATIONAL idiosyncrasy must always receive its first c^ 
louring from ^ie influence of soil and of climate : and the mo^ 
characteristics of every people be resolvable into the pecu' r g 
constitution of their physical structure. Religion and govu 0- 
ment, indeed, give a powerful direction to the principles a 
modes of civilized society, and debase or elevate its inherent 
qualities, by the excellence or defect of their own institutes. 
But the complexion al features of the race remain fixed and un- 
changed, the original impression of nature is never effaced. 

The portrait drawn of the ancient Gauls, by Csesar, preserves 
its resemblance to the French of the present day, notwithstand- 
ing the various grafts that have been inserted into the national 
stock. And Agathias and Machiavel have nearly given the same 
sketch of the same originals, at periods of very remote distance 
and with views of very different tendency. Susceptible and ar- 

K 



(55 SOCIETY. 

dent, impetuous and fierce, the most civilized of all the barba- 
rians, whom Rome subjected to her yoke, are still the most po- 
lished people of Europe; and the French, through all the vicis- 
situdes of their political iortunes, through all the horrors of the 
most sanguinary epoch of their revolution, have exhibited that 
inherent tendency to social attachment, that capability of ge- 
nerous devotion, and that fund of bon-hommie (to use a word 
of their own creation, for a feeling peculiar to themselves), 
which evince that the worst form of religion and government, 
could not destroy the happy elements of character, out of which 
such kindly dispositions arose. The atrocities, which stained the 
most unfortunate sera oi the revolution, were almost redeemed 
by the constitutional virtues, which exhibited themselves during 
its progress. Condorcet, condemned to death, yet refusing the 
asylum which friendship risked itself to offer him, is but one out 
of a thousand examples of noble disinterestedness and heroic de- 
votion.* 

When humanity snatched one breathing moment from blood 
and terror, to bestow it on social intercourse; when all the quar- 
ters of Paris gave that well-remembered civic dinner in the pub- 
lic streets, to which all wer^ bidden, and to which all were wel- 
comed; the tide of social affection, long frozen in its channels, 
suddenly dissolved, and flowed in its wonted genial current. The 
impulses of joy were universal ; strangers rushed into each other's 
arms; friends, long severed, clung in close embrace; and the 
sanguinary tyrant of the hour saw, in this sudden burst of friend- 
ly communication, the revival of the national " bon-homwie" 
and the downfall of his own power. A decree was issued against 
the recurrence of such festivals of the heart; but it was publish- 
d too late: the avenues of social feeling were again opened, 

d the civic dinner was the passover of an emancipated people. 

The frightful system of despotism, laid by the ferocious tyran- 
/ of Louis XI. and accomplished by the ambition and pride of 
^ouis XIV. produced an obvious and fatal influence on the cha- 
racter of the nation. The independence of the nobility, which 
bent before the open force and and direct hostility of the barba- 
rian king, moulded into irretrievable ruin before the enfeebling 
corruption of the more accomplished despot. Against this prime 

* Condorcet, pursued by the terrorists, received an offer of protection and 
concealment from a female friend: he peremptorily refused this generous 
offer, exclaiming 1 , " Vons seriez horslaloi.'" [" You will violate the law !"3 
*' Eh! suis-je hove V humanitt?" [" And shall I violate humanity?"] was her 
answer. This heroic reply did not prevail upon the unfortunate fugitive : lie 
fied from the asylum of the friend, whose safety was more precious than his 
own, and survived but a few day?. 



ascifify. 0y 

destroyer of the liberties and morals of his devoted people. His- 
tory appeals to posterity; for the totemporary chroniclers, who 
undertook their task at royal command, and stained her page in 
time-serving obsequiousness to the vanity of their employer, 
were insensible to the national degradation they recorded. When 
Boileau and Racine recited to the monarch, and to his mistresses, 
the glories, pomp, and power of his reign,* these courtly poets, 
but feeble historians, felt not that the annals which flattered the 
pride of the vain-glorious king, condemned the despot of a ruin- 
ed people to immortal ignominy. The unprofitable wars, by 
which the insatiate ambition of Louis XIV. endeavored to ex- 
tend his dominion; the lavish expenditure of incalculable trea- 
sures, dissipated in idle amusements, or squandered on gorge- 
ous palaces, left his people beggared,- and his finance exhausted. 
His despotic supremacy suffered no trace of political liberty to 
exist; and the fatal example of his own private life spread the 
contagion of vice and of hypocrisy through every class, and 
opened the gates of systematic depravity to his successors, which 
never closed, till the whole temple of corruption w r as 

" hurled headlong", 
With hideous ruin and combustion, down. 

In the history of civilized society there is, perhaps, no paral- 
lel for the moral degradation that enveloped France, during the 
whole of the eighteenth century. It was a demoralization s© 
perfect, so unrestrained, and finally so unconsciously subsisting, 
sapping, corrupting, gangrening every social and moral relation 
of life, that towards the end of the long reign of Louis XV. 
scarcely one tie, that binds man to man, remained unbroken or 
undefiled; all was pollution, or degradation, political profligacy, 
or moral delinquency. Fiction and fact, history and romance, 
all that described, and all that imitated the morals and manners 
of these days, reflect their disgusting details with frightful fide- 

* After a dangerous illness, the king" permitted Boileau and Racine to 
amuse him, by reading 1 aloud some pages of the history of his reign, which 
Madame de Montespan had engaged them to write. The king heard them, 
seated between his two mistresses; the one in the height of her power, the 
other in her wane. To account for the distinction thus conferred upon his 
ex-favorite, Louis said ; " II est Hen juste, madame, que vans assisiiez a la lec- 
ture d'un ouvrage,dont vous meme avez trad le plan." [It is just, madam, that 
you should assist at the reading of a work, of which you yourself have 
traced the plan.] The History of Louis le Grand, commandtdby himself, plan- 
ned by his mistress, and executed by two pensioned poets ! ! ! What a combina- 
tion! Buonaparte, speaking of Louis XIV., said, " C'etait un pauvre homme; 
— s'il existait, je n'en voudrais pas pour mon aide-de-camp." [He was a poor 
creature; if he existed now, I would not have him for my aid-de-camp.] 



gg SOCIETY. 

lity. It is the illustrious Bussysf and St. Simons who attest the 
enormities they so gaily picture. It is the high-born Richelieu, 
who has immortalized the depravity of that elevated class, whose 
vices are found epitomized in his own history of his own life. 
From the careless and spirited details of the brilliant de Se- 
vign6, down to the imitative and ingenious fictions of the Mari- 
vaux, Crebillons, Lou vets, and the Duclos, a code of corruption 
might be drawn, so perfect in vice, so matchless in crime, that 
not the hardiest champion of the " bon vieux terns" [the good 
old time] would dare to defend it, or could refrain from astonish- 
ment, that « such things could be." 

" And overcome him, like a summer's cloud, 
Without hi9 special wonder!" 

When the measure of political abuse was filled to overflowing; 
when not a ray of freedom was left to the people, not a shadow 
of representation to the nobility; when venality stalked forth in 
the stole of sanctity, and simony held an open market; when 
privileges were substituted for rights, and influence usurped the 
forms of legitimate power; when exaction and oppression went 
hand in hand through every enormity, and the poison of moral 
corruption had worked its level through the whole mass; then 
the bond of society was rent asunder; and the great and final 
bouleversement, [overthrow] which followed, was only proportion- 
ate, in its progress and effects, to its origin and causes. The first 
explosion, bold, brilliant, and aspiring, as the ascending fires of 
pyrotechny, was followed by the admiration, and consecrated by 
the vows of all that was enlightened and liberal in Europe. Even 
royalty watched its commencement without fear, as its light 
pierced the gloom of the dungeon, and brightened the mansions 
of living sepulture; and philosophy gloried in its career, as she 
uelield the darkness of prejudice dissipated by its blaze, and the 
frightful edifice of despotism sink under its influence. 

But, though the revolution was an event devoutly wished by 
the liberal, and ardently forwarded by the wise; though all the 
talent and all the genius of the nation concurred in 

M Mutual league, 
United thoughts and counsel, equal hope, 
And hazard in the glorious enterprize," 

f Comte de Bussy Rabutin, author of " Histoire Amoureuse des Gaules," 
and of Memoires." It is curious to observe, that the intimate and most ad- 
mired friend of the amiable Madame de Sevigne was M. Pomenars, a noted 
coiner, though a man of rank. He was repeatedly tried for his life ; and Mad. 
de Sevign£ frankly declares her belief, that he was guilty of every crime, but 
poisoning. 



sociEir. ^g 

they could but direct its spirit, and guide its views. It was the 
physical force of the nation, which could alone carry the design 
into effect. It was the collected mass of the most political, de- 
graded people in Europe, which was to bear it on: and the cause 
of freedom was inevitably committed into the hands of slaves. 
It was to no race, like the myrmidons of Achilles, swarming 
forth, and changing their species, that the work of devastation 
was consigned. Those who gave the revolution its sanguinary 
character were no miraculous progeny, no spontaneous product 
of the new order of things, but the home-bred children of des- 
potism, who, like the « yelling monsters'* of Milton's Sin, turn- 
ed against their mother, and 

" HowPd, and gnaw'd her bowels, their repast." 

Familiar with sights of blood, to which the public executions 
had inured them,* their own wild deeds were governed by their 
horrible experience. Sympathy long deadened, and sensibility 
long blunted, by the very nature of their institutions, they had 
now none left to exercise or to bestow on those who had thus de- 
graded them. It was these long passive and thoroughly debased 
subjects of abused authority, who, creeping from their dens, 
shadowed by the Bastille, followed in the train of their tiger- 
leaders; who, glutted with blood, yet thirsting for carnage, 
taught the dreadful lesson, that those only who are educated in 
liberty, are capable of forwarding her cause; who evinced that 
many revolutions must occur, and many systems of government 
arise and fall, ere the stain of vassalage can be effaced; ere the 
mark of the chain can be worn from the neck of the captive, and 
the freeman forget that he had once been a slave! 

As it is the fashion of the day purposely to mistake constitu- 
tional principles, for democratic speculations, so it is its policy 
to revive and bring forwad the horrors of the revolution, as 
« bugbears dressed to frighten children," into all that can be im- 
posed or inflicted. Images of long-passed crimes are conjured 
up, to spread terror, to awaken indignation, to increase preju- 
dice, and to render the people of two great nations the victims 
of the old state policy of "divide, and govern." But it should 
be remembered, that the generation which perpetrated these 
atrocities, were the legitimate subjects of legitimate monarchs, 

* In the history of human cruelty, there was nothing so atrocious as the 
criminal punishments of France. Madame de Sevigne mentions, in the course 
of her letters, above fifty persons broken alive on the wheel, and two ladies 
burned by a slow fire ; of whom, one was accused of sorcery. Damien and 
Ravillac were torn to pieces by horses, after tortures the most horrible : " the 
question," or torture, was a thing of every -day occurrence. 



j (j socitfri 

and were stamped with the character of the government, which 
produced them. Tlie race, however, have long passed away, 
which immolated, on the same altar, plebeian worth and royal 
virtue; who included in the same mighty hecatomb the champi- 
ons of loyalty and the advocates of freedom, the La Tremouil- 
les and La Rochefoucaulds, with the Rolands and the Condor- 
cets, all that was precious in the annals of ancient chivalry, with 
all that was distinguished in the records of modern philosophy. 
Mature in life, when the scene of their iniquities opened upon 
this "horrid crew," it soon closed upon their guilt ; and the 
Marats, the Dantons, and the Robespierres, who belonged equally 
to the order of things which preceded the revolution, and to that, 
which filled up the most frightful of its epochs, can never re-ap- 
pear, unless a similar corruption in the government, and an 
equal degradation in the nation, shall prove again the inevitable 
connection between oppression, in the ruler, and worthlessness, 
in the people. 

The nobility of France, including all the higher classes of so- 
ciety, are distinguished, in the early annals of their country, by 
a boldness and an energy of character, which not even the iron 
cages and loathsome dungeons of their determined foe, Louis 
XL could subdue. But what his oppression could not effect, the 
vicious court and corrupting despotism of Louis XIV. accom- 
plished. In the whining sycophants, who shed tears when the 
monarch frowned;* who canvassed the honour of becoming the 
husband of his mistress, or of yielding up their daughters to royal 
concubinage, it is difficult to trace the ancient baronical indepen- 
dence, the high sense of honour, which produced the Guesclins 
and the Baijards of earlier days. — Amidst the orange groves and 
luxurious pavilions of Versailles, among priests and parasites, 
in childish amusements and in womanship gossip, expired that 
once brilliant spirit, which gave to the French cavalier his pecu- 
liar tone of gallant intrepidity. The energy and vivacity, distin- 
guishable through the political and religious struggles of the 
League, were no more, and that careless desperation, which in- 
duced the chiefs of the Fronde to embark in a cause, scarely un- 
derstood, to please a beauty, scarcely known, 

*Even "le vertueux Pomponne" [the virtuous Pomponne] is described as 
weeping, when the king- reproved him; and monsieur kneels at the feet of his 
royal brother, to thank him for a favour conferred on one of his friends. Mad. 
de Maintenon's own picture of this " cour iniqve" [iniquitous court] as she 
calls it, is curious : "Nous y voyons des envies, sans sujet, des rages, des trahi- 
som, sans resentimeni, des bassesses qu'on couvre du nom de grandeur d'dme." 
[We see there, envy without cause, fury and treachery without resentment, 
and meanness dignified With the title of greatness of soul. 



i 



SOCIETY. y£ 

" de faire la guerre aux rois/' 
[to war with kings,] 

or, 

" de faire la guerre aux dieux," 
[to war with the gods,] 

this bright etlierial spark of national fire was exchanged for a 
flame, cold and putrescent as the marshy exhalation, and fit only 
to light the idolatrous altars, raised by a parasite aristocracy, to 
the worship of a vain-glorious monarch. — The group of slaves, 
which the flattery of the sculptor has placed at the feet of the 
most gorgeous statue of the most georgeous of kings, aptly 
images the higher classes of society, bv which he was surround- 
ed.* 

The courtiers of Louis XV. not less feeble and more depraved, 
not less abject and more vicious, resolved all human dignity into 
the maxim of " representer noblement" [to act nobly.] How 
possible it was to representer noblement, without one noble prin- 
ciple or manly virtue, the innumerable memoirs of the innume- 
rable « gay Lotharios" of those days of egotism and vanity best 
evince. 

The .transition from the finical refinements and solemn pueri- 
lities of this age of dramatic representation, to the bold, coarse, 
republican tone of revolutionary manners, was singularly rapid, 
and curiously contrasted. To the ennui, exhaustion, and inanity, 
which characterized the insipid circles of a worn-out race, suc- 
ceeded an exaltation of head and a glow of heart, productive 
sometimes of the noblest, sometimes of the most tragical, and 
sometimes of the most ludicrous effects. The self-immolation of 
Charlotte Corday, the dauntless heroism of Madame Roland, 
belong to the best sera of Roman patriotism. The avengeful 
feelings, which rose almost beyond the tone of human vindictive- 
ness, pursuing the dying moments of Robespierre, « breathe a 
browner horror" over deeds of darkness, than the deepest shades 
of tragic fictionf have ever reached; and there is nothing broader 

* When this famous statue of Louis XIV. was thrown down, in 1792, the 
name of the celebrated artist, Girardon was found written on one of the feet 
of the horse. Chamfort rather harshly defines this hiimility to be " la modeste 
betise d'un homme de gCnie, qui se croit honor 6 de travailler d la gloire d'un ty~ 
ran." [The modest stupidity of a man of genius, who thought it an honor to 
work for the glory of a tyrant.] 

f When Robespierre stood upon the steps of the tribunal, vainly appealing 
to a people over whose passions he had now lost all influence (for his last 
hour was come), a spectral figure, tall, gaunt, and fearful, which had for 
some time moved closely beside him, now continued to murmur at intervals 
in his ear in a hollow and monotonous tone/'fw tfesplusrien, tyrant Vechafand 



*% SOCIETY. 

in farce, than the vicissitudes of the Abon Hassans of the 
early part of the revolution ; when the « rabble rout" of Porte 
St. Antoine assumed the toga of Patrician dignity; when Caius 
Marius, the cobler, discussed the rights of the people, under the 
domes of the Capets, and Cornelia, the iishwoman, distributed 
black bread to her ragged marmotes, [brats,] with the conscious 
feelings of the mother of the Gracchi. It was during these na- 
tional Saturnalia, that the Rochefoucaulds, the Talley rands, the 
Mirabeaus, became immersed in the mud they had raked up 
from the « lie du people;" [dregs of the people:] and now suing 
those, so lately the slaves of their legitimate power, humbly 
craved « the most sweet voices" of the swinish multitude, who 
thus 

" Pranked it in authority, against all noble sufferance" 

In this moment of general subversion, all was transition the 
most violent, and extremes the most opposite; evincing a people 
from whom all principles had long been withheld, by arbitrary 
power ; and who, when released from its restraints, became the 
slaves of their own unbridled and ill-directed will. Trifles the 
most puerile, with events the most important, equally occupied 
the public mind ; and while the government was daily changing 
its forms und its chiefs, objects the most insignificant became en- 
veloped in the universal transmutation. Streets changed their 
names, hotels their distinctions, rooms their furniture. The place 
Louis Quinze became the " place de la Revolution." Where the 
Sevignes and the Richeiieus presided over the elegant circles of 
their day, the Montagnards now howled, or the Chouans vocife- 
rated; and Brissot and Condorcet opposed to the wild inspira- 
tions of vulgar anarchy, the bold, fearless eloquence of patriot- 
ism and genius, where, haply, Voiture had once recited his in- 
sipid verses to applauding dutchesses, when the " Guirlande de 

£ attend" [you are no more, tyrant; the scaffold waits for you.] Robespierre 
in vain endeavoured to frown away this evil genius — his frown had lost its 
terror, and his voice its command. 

Another instance of poetical justice attended the death of this sanguinary 
monster, which marked the frightful vengeance of the times. When his hand 
missed its aim, and he shot himself through the jaw instead of through the 
brain, he was carried to the hotel de ville, [town hall] and laid upon the 
council table from which so many of his horrid decrees had issued. A wo- 
man, who had walked close beside the bier on which he was carried, with 
a countenance of fixed despair, took her station at his head, and gazed on. 
his mangled form with looks of unglutted vengeance, for he had been 
the murderer of her son. In the agonies of a burning thirst, he called for 
something to drink. " Bo is ton sang," she replied, pressing his hand, " ty- 
tan, tu as toujours aime" le sang." [Drink your blood, tyrant, vou have always 
thir ^dfbr blet>d n 



SOCIETY. iv £ 

Julie" [Garland of Julia] was deemed the jwsse-outre [master 
piece] of the intellect of the nation. 

All the lumber of aristocracy, material and immaterial, was 
placed under the ban of popular aversion ; and the armories of 
Boule, and the tapestry of the Gobelins, submitted alike to revo- 
lutionary rage, with the fortunes and lives of their noble owners. 
While the time-honored bergere [elbow-chair] drew down the im- 
putation of bad citizenship, th© " divin tabouret" [divine tabou- 
ret, a sort of stool] was a sure stepping-stone « a la lanterne" 
[to the lamp post] — and Josses and buffets gave way to Etruscan 
vases, and antique tripods, and the venerable « canape" [cano- 
py-sofa] denounced and proscribed, yielded to the usurpation of 
couches, which Praxiteles might have designed for the apart- 
ments of Aspasia — Even the splendid pendules, [clocks] which 
had presided in the royal palaces over hours 

" That danced away ivith doxvn upon their feet* 

submitted to tM common fate; and while the time-pieces of Ver- 
sailles and St. Cloud were sold for old brass, Flavius, the hair- 
dresser, consulted his sun-dial, and asked of Memmius, the cast- 
clothes' man, 

"I prithee, citizen, what shadow of the day is it?" ^ 

Religion too, still struggling for her supremacy under any 
name or form, adopted •< changeful fashions of the day." — Hea- 
then altars rose, where holy reposoirs had once held their sta- 
tions; the scite of mythological rites, long consecrated to Chris- 
tian devotion, again resumed its original name and purpose; and 
the venerable church of the thrice-blessed St. Genevieve became 
the « temple of all the Gods" 

But, while the people and their demagogue-leaders thus evin- 
ced the inherent frivolity of a long degenerating people; while 
modes and manners rapidly changed their form and colouring, 
with successive constitutions; the principle of regeneration was 
still slowly working out its way, through the tissue of folly and 
ferocity that opposed it. The public spirit and good sense of the 
nation, its genius, and its patriotism, under the names of Fede- 
ralists, Brissotins, or Girondins, stood opposed alike to the bad 
taste and bad feeling of a wild democracy, which had ranged it- 
self under the protection of the deities of Olympus. The regi- 
me of terrorism threw a mauvaise odeur [taint] over the repub- 
lican jargon of the modern Bruti. and the tone of society, dur- 
ing the reign of the Directory, stood much less indebted to the 

lu - 



y4 SOCIETY. 

getting-up of articles from the classical dictionary, than any 
which had been adopted since the first sera of the revolution. 

While, however, nanners were tinctured with all the exagge- 
rated feelings of the day, and partook of that ridicule, to which 
all exaggerated feeling is liable, the nation was making a silent 
but sensible progress in morals and illumination. Mothers now 
gloried, or affected to glory, in that sacred name; infancy no 
longer drew its sustenance from a hireling bosom; nor was child- 
hood bereft of all the endearments of home, or driven from the 
enjoyment of domestic affection to the chilling cells of a convent, 
and the cold attentions of purchased care. Daughters became 
members of their own families; sons were taught by their fa- 
thers that they had a country; and Nature, righting herself even 
amidst the outrages committed on her, obtained an influence 
over the feelings and actions of society, to which, in France, she 
had long been a stranger. 

It was at this period that a series of glorious conquests abroad, 
and an anarchical struggle for power, at home, cflted forth a new 
arrangement in the government of the state. The people were 
worn out by a rapid succession of constitutions, which had as 
yet produced little tangible good, and taken no permanent form. 
They sought a chief, whose influence might compose the still fer- 
menting mass of public opinion, and throw the tie of unity over 
contending factions. Military glory, " which grew with what it 
fed on," had become the object of national enthusiasm; and the 
people, like the friends of Coriolanus, deeming, that 



4 Valour was the chiefest virtue^' ' 



And did most dignify the wearer," 

hose for their ruler the greatest captain of the age, and placed 
Hm by acclamation on the throne of France, who had already 
laid the thrones of continental Europe at her feet.* 

* " My brother," said Lucien Buonaparte, " is the most legitimate monarch 
in Europe; for he is the only one chosen by the voice of the people." 

Buonaparte had indeed made himself popular by many little acts of gene- 
rosity and bon-hommie, which, in whatever cause they originated, had their 
effect on the army and the lower classes. After the battle of Areola, he was 
walking alone through the camp at night, when he perceived a sentinel asleep 
upon his arms. He took his fusee gently from him and placing him on the 
ground, kept watch on his post for nearly two hours. The soldier at last 
awoke, and perceiving- an officer doing his duty, was panic-struck ; but when 
the next moment he discovered that his officer was the Commander-in- 
Chief, he exclaimed, in a tone of despair: " Buonaparte ! Je aids perdu." 
[Buonaparte! I am lost ] Buonaparte returning him his arms, simply observed, 
" apres tant de fatigues, il est permis a un brave, comme toi, de s'endormir ; 
mais une autre fois prends ntieux ton terns." [After so many fatigues, a brave 



SOCIETY. yg 

Napoleon Buonaparte, elected emperor of the French, pre- 
served unsullied, during the first period of his reign, the popu- 
larity, which had given birth to his elevation. Personal merit 
had now reached its just standard of appreciation in a country, 
where all factitious distinctions had long been reduced to their 
intrinsic value; and talent, still holding its supremacy, became 
the passport to imperial protection. The arts and sciences ral- 
lied round the throne of him, whose conquests nad so consider- 
ably extended their resources,* and whose liberality had lavished 
such munificent rewards on their numerous profe sors. Heredi- 
tary rank came forth from its ruined towers, to hail the founder 
of a new dynasty, who promised remuneration, for a portion at 
least, of what the revolution had confiscated. The descendants of 
the ancient defenders of the good kings Raoul and Hugh Capet, lent 
their time-consecrated support to a fourth race, as their ances- 
tors had struggled for, and crowned, a second and a third. Many 
of the most ancient nobility of France had remained in the coun- 
try, and weathered the storms of its successive revolutions; and 
the Rohans, the Mortimarts, the La Rochefoucaulds, the Beau- 
veaus, the Praslins, the Birons, the Brissacs, the Montmoren- 
cis, the Talleyrands; in a word, the most illustrious names in 
the historical annals of the nation, filled the anti-chamber, or 
assisted in the councils of a chief, who courted their representa- 
tives with deference, received them with kindness, and loaded 
them with honours. 

Every day some erasure was made from the list«of emigrant 
proscription-.f the descendants of the «menins"\ [minions] to 
the " monsieur 's" of feebler days, became the friends of the 
reigning sovereign ; and the "guidons of the royal lily"|| ranged 
themselves under the standard of the imperial eagle. All factions 

man like you may be permitted to sleep ; but in future choose a more proper 
time/] 

* Buonaparte expended thirty millions of francs on objects of art and an- 
tiquities, besides those he obtained by "conquest. 

| Napoleon was so anxious to have the ancient nobility about his person, 
that he left no means untried to bring them over. One day he erased the 
names of so many emigrants from the list of proscription, that his minister 
remarked, "Comment done, Sire, vans allez rayer le Comte d'Artois et son frere?" 
[What Sire, are you going to erase the Count d'Artois and his brother?] To 
which he replied, " Et poarquoi non? Est-ce quails ont portc les arraes?^ [[And 
why not? have they borne arms?] 

% The menins, or minions of the dauphins of France, were ten young* gen- 
tlemen kept about his person to dissipate his ennui. They had six thousand 
livres pension, "pouv etre assidus auprh da dauphin." [to be assiduous about 
the dauphin.] 

|| See the Marquis de Sevigne's complaints at remaining a guidon, at the 
age of forty. 



y»6 

were now blended in the one 5 and it was reserved for this sin- 
gular founder of his own fortunes to cement and establish his 
power, by operating a fusion of all parties in his own favour, 
thus presenting, in the first and wisest era of his reign, a com- 
bination of talents, feelings, and principles, which had long 
been given to the support of opposite and contending systems. 
The leaders of the several former constitutions now joined in 
upholding one, and preserved the recollection of their ancient 
feuds no further, than to lament that they ever existed. 

It was a dogma in the new political creed of Napoleon, that 
the ancient noblesse of the country, though essentially allied to 
the fallen dynasty, might be rendered an equally firm and bril- 
liant support to his own; and while a sort of romantic passion 
for historical names§ abetted the policy, which led him to re-es- 
tablish the families which bore them, the descendants of the an- 
cient barons of France were nothing loth to receive new digni- 
ties, and the immense revenues that were given in lieu of their 
ancient possessions, even from the hands of a parvenu [an up- 
start] sovereign. "It is astonishing," said M. de Talleyrand, 
"how many emigrant ladies, of the old court, wish me to force 
them to become dames d'homieur, [ladies of honour] in the new." 
And it is a well known fact, that many of the ci-devant " dues 
et pairs/ 9 [dukes and peers] who now talk in raptures of the 
" ineffable felicite dont jouisserent leur peres 9 sons la paisible duree 
de V empire hereditaire, [the ineffable felicity which their father 
enjoyed, untler the peaceful duration of the hereditary empire,] 
were then proud to display their grand chambellan's ribbon, in 
the imperial anti-room; and courted smiles and accepted favours 
from the munificence of him, whom they now contemptuously 
mention, in the presence of legitimacy, by the epithet of the 
usurper! 

Amongst the ancient nobility, however, Napoleon had many 
personal friends, who justify their allegiance to him by argu- 
ments difficult to refute.* TheJP did not give up their hereditary 

§ Napoleon was very proud of being 1 gentil-hammie. [g-entleman.] One day, 
at Vienna, the emperor of Austria, in reply to his boast on this head, observ- 
ed that lie had seen in the imperial library an old account of the Buona- 
parte family. Napoleon eagerly begged the volume as a present from his fa- 
ther-in-law, who answered, drily, that it had been taken from the library, dur- 
ing the occupation of Vienna by the French. 

* Buonaparte's preference of the old nobility went so far, that he ordered 
the prefets to give the " petites magistratures du village" [petty magistrates of 
the village] to the poorer gentlemen, for whom no better employments could 
be made out. This preference was regarded with great jealousy by the rest 
of the nation, with whom it had long been resolved into a maxim, that all the 
citizms should be the " enfans de leurs actions ;" [children of their deedsj and 
in whose eyes all who served the state were equally noble. 



SClClE I Y lyj- 

princes, till all Europe Lad likewise abandoned them; till Rus- 
sia, Prussia, Austria, Spain, nearly all the legitimate authorities 
of the continent, had deserted the cause of legitimacy. When 
these potentates had acknowledged the power which the French 
nation had chosen for itself, the Bourbons became in France 
what the Stuarts had been in England; and all that it had once 
been virt'ie to uphold, it then became treason to defend. With 
such sanction for their tergiversation, the nobility felt at that 
period, with the rest of the nation, that he, round whom they 
rallied, 

" Mote Worthy interest had done the state, 
M Than those the shadows of succession." 

The court of the new Charlemagne, filled with the descend- 
ants of Preux and Paladins, assumed a character of gothic 
grandeur, wholly destructive to that tone of republican simpli- 
city, which Brutus Buonaparte had once contributed to estab- 
lish.! The house of brick became a palace of marble. The fairy 
splendours of the caliph Aaron-al-Raschid were united to the 
cumbrous magnificence of the middle ages. The stately formali- 
ties of the Escurial presided over the circles of the Thuilleries; 
and the costumes of theYalois and the Medici fell in heavy folds 
over forms, which had long exhibited their symmetry in the ad- 
hesive drapery of Grecian sculpture.^ Even the old stage-pro- 
perties of royal legitimacy came forward, on the scene of impe- 
rial representation; and the decorations of the legion of honour 
were distributed from the casque of Guesclin a?id the. heljpet of 
Bayard; while the chair of Dagobert was furbished up to re- 
ceive the representative of the western emperors, and the iron 
crown of Lombardy was cleaned and polished, to encircle the 
brows of a new king of Italy, the successor of the Csesars. 

The fastes of France now rivalled those of ancient Rome, in 
its most splendid days. The government, once defined to be a 
despotism, « temper e par une chanson" [tempered by a song] 
was now a despotism, veiled in a halo of splendour. The riches 
of Europe were poured into the coffers of the state; potentates 

f Buonaparte and Casti, the author of " gU animali parlanti," had heen 
known to each other during the fervor of the revolutionary times. When 
Casti was afterwards presented at the imperial court, the emperor addressed 
him with " Eh bien, Signor Casti, etes-vous toujours democrat!" [Well, Signor 
Casti, are you still a democrat ?] " Plus que jamais, Sire" replied the poet. 
" Je vols que les grands ho?nmes debutent par Id." [More than ever, Sire, repli- 
ed the poet. That is the character in which great men generally make their 
first appearance.]) 

\ The costumes of the two Medicis were assumed by the empresses, at 
•thei* coronation. 



ivg SOCIETY 

were visitants or prisoners in the palaces of its capital, and their 
territories were included within the boundaries of its dominion. 
Works of Roman magnitude, beauty, and utility, arose on every 
side: all that was mean was removed; all that was noble was 
revived; all that wore the air of improvement received the sanc- 
tion of authority ; and society, taking its tone from the colossal 
grandeur of the government, was massive in its forms, splendid 
in its draperies, energetic in its spirit, and brilliant in its details. 
The insipidity of the " good old times," and the ferocity of the 
revolutionary days, were alike denounced by the reigning bon- 
Un; " and les Muses et les Graces" with their old « cortege les 
ris et les amours," [The muses and the graces, with their old 
trains, she smiles and she loves,] were dismissed in company with 
the phrases and figures of rhetoric, the tropes and images of 
jacobin oratory. 

The character of the nation seemed to assimilate itself to that 
of the chief; and its inherent activity, taking a high direction, 
was no longer diverted by enfeebling institutes to insignificant 
objects, nor worked upon by temporary exaltations to frenzied 
violence. The public deportment and occupied life of the empe- 
ror, put the exhibition of vice and the appearance of idleness 
out of fashion. There were no mistresses of state ;|| no Pompa- 
dour or du Barre to give royal sanction to private profligacy, 
and to convert female caprices into reasons of state. No games§ 
were played at court, which in the city were prohibited under 
pain of death. No elegant swindlers, like the Pomenars and the 
Grammonts,* played off their fourberies [cheating tricks] with 

J| Whatever might have been the irregularities of the man, they made no part 
of the parade of the sovereign-A petite pizce, [little piece,] by Etienne, was re- 
presented at the theatre of the Thuilleries, in which it was said, that " the la- 
dies of the court made colonels in the army." The emperor, who was present 
showed evident signs of disapprobation ; and as he passed through the apart- 
ments of the palace, where the ladies in waiting were at cards, he stopped 
and said to some of them from whom I had the anecdote, " Eh bien, mesdmnes? 
est-cevous done, qui faites les colonels? Voild ce que je-ri'avois jamais soupconne'" 
[Well, ladies, is it you then, who make the colonels ? This is something I 
should never have suspected.] 

§ " ffocca." See madame de Sevign6's Letters. 

* It was the Comte de Grammont himself, who sold for fifteen hundred 
livres his own manuscript memoirs, in which he is painted as an accomplish- 
ed swindler. Fontenelle, the censor of the work, refused to approve it, out 
of feelings of regard to the noble family de Grammont. The count complain- 
ed of this to the chancellor, to whom Fontenelle explained his reasons. De 
Grammont, however, would not lose his fifteen hundred livres, and obliged 
Fontenelle to approve the amusing memoirs of his own fourberies, rendered 
immortal by the wit and talents of his kinsman. Anthony Hamilton Pome- 
nars, the intimate friend and guest of Madame de Sevigne was repeatedly 
tried for his life, as a coiner, and having defeated the law paid his lawyer with 
his own false mon?v. 



SOCIETY. JQ 

their jokes, nor exhibited their dexterity and their wit, at the 
expense of their honour and their characters. So little were the 
pleasures of the tahle appreciated by him, who seemed to make 
all pleasures suhservient to his ambition, that the gastronomic 
science fell into disrepute, with the other revolutionary tastes; 
and the chefs de cuisine [chit fs of the kitchen — cooks] might have 
meditated a conspiracy against the contemner of their art, if 
Cambaceres and his " camarades de mangerie 99 [comrades in 
eating] had not kept alive their hopes until the return of those 

times, in which, as the Due de 1) s lately expressed it, "la 

mqjeste du trone est placee dans la cuisine, 99 ] [the majesty of the 
throne is plared in the kitchen.] 

The society ot Paris had now wholly changed its classifica- 
tion with its tone. It was no longer composed of " Moderns" and 
« Montagnards" [moderates and mountaineers,] of jacobin chiefs 
and republican leaders. These <* rough-headed kerns," in the cos- 
tume of brigandage, [highwayman,] no longer swarmed in dusky 
groups in the salons, nor filled the public places with their ruf- 
fian figures; but they were replaced by a circle of popes, and 
kings, and potentates, and princes, en grande costume, and habits 
of ceremony. 

Where the humble fiacre was once forbidden to roll, by repub- 
lican severity, the eqmpages of foreign sovereigns now " stop- 
ped the way,":): and « n.onsieur le cocker, si voire maitre n 9 est 
pas Jtoi 9 rous n 9 y passercz pas, 99 [mister coachman, if your mas- 
er is not a king, you cannot pass here,] was a common denun- 
ciation from the sentinel, who guarded the avenues of the opera; 
where kings assembled as familiarly and numerously, as at the 
table de hole of the adventurous candidate.|| 

« Ne preroyex-vovs pas qnej 9 anrais bientot trois on quatre rois 
sur le bras? 99 [Do you not see that I shall soon have three or 
four kings upon me?] was the reply of Lucien Buonaparte to a 
friend, who reproached him with his economy. And (( il est pass S 
roi 99 [he has passed king] was the military cant of the soldiers, 
when Bernadotte retired from the army; just as "ilestpasss 
Serjeant 99 [he has passed serjeant] was applied to a comrade, who 

f Napoleon was temperate, even to abstemiousness, at table, and has been. 
known to rise from it the moment he had dined, without regard to the un- 
satisfied appetites of the company, who, by etiquette, were obliged to leave 
the table when he retired. 

* At one period of the revolution, to be seen in a carriage, was to be sus- 
pected of royalism. Even hackney coaches did not ply. 

|| The house-maid of our hotel observed, in its commendation, that" when 
the kings and princes used to visit Paris, we had our share of them, tout coin= 
me un autrd" [[as well as our neighbours.! 



gO SOCIETY. 

had arrived at the dignity of the halbert. To be made a kiag, 
was, indeed a sort dfr respectable retreat^ for a marshal; and 
the sceptre was no unfrequent expectation for those, who had 
wielded the baton [staff] with credit and utility. 

When James of England sought an asylum at the court of 
France, the poets of the day sung it as an event of glory in the 
annals of the nation. 

" Et la cour de Louis est l'asyle des rois," 
[And the court of Louis is the asylum of kings,] 

Was a boast re-echoed with pride. But it was reserved for the 
emperor of France to sit covered in a congress of bare-headed 
sovereigns, in his own palace,* and. in halls, where Louis XIV. 
danced for the amusement of his subjects, to command tributary 
princes to waltz for his own.f Even the descendant of that branch 
of the Bourbon family whose succession to the dominions of Spain 
cost the grand monarqne so much blood and treasure, was now 
seen quietly abiding in the territory of his ancestors, at the coun- 
try house of the emperor's grand chambellan; converting the 
woods of Valency into bon-fires, to celebrate the successive 
victories of his conqueror; or lighting the casements of his prison 
to show his devotion to his sovereign:):, who had deposed him; 
while the successor of St. Peter, whose predecessors had so often 
shaken the thrones of Europe, now became alternately the guest 
and prisoner of him, by whom his own had been reversed.l| 

§ When the throne of Portugal became vacant, Jerome Buonaparte, Soult, 
and Murat, were candidates for the office. 

* When the monarchs of the confederation of the Rhine, assembled in 
•Paris, in 1809, Napoleon alone sat covered with a velvet hat and feather, at 
an entertainment given to the royal guests. 

f It was a line in Racine's " JVero" that first taught Louis XIV. the ab- 
surdity of dancing courantes, and performing ballets, for the amusement of 
his courtiers. 

t Ferdinand, the beloved, never failed to celebrate the victories of the em. 
peror, at the expense of the woods of Valency, the beautiful seat of Talley- 
rand, who complained bitterly of these royal depredations. The king of 
Spain lived in great privacy during his residence in France, devoting himself 
chiefly to the society of Brunet, the excellent comic actor of the Varittis, and 
of a certain agreeable dancing-master. I know not, whether this " dieu do la 
danse" [god of dancing] accompanied his majesty back to his dominions ; 
but it is well understood that Ferdinand made some very tempting offers for 
that purpose. Brunet, however, had no ambition to follow in the steps of his 
predecessors, Montfleuri and Farinelli, and declined giving up those talents 
" to a party, which were meant for mankind." It would be curious to specu- 
late on the probable influence of such a moire du palais [may of the palace] 
at the Escurial, who would perhaps have in time supplanted the grand in- 
quisitor, by " Jocvisse pe're" [a character in a French play] and have substi- 
tuted the amusement of a good comedy for the national recreation of an auto 
dap. 

I[ Pope Pins VI Tvas described to me,, by one clee'p-read in human charac- 



SOCIETY. g£ 

When the republican forms and revolutionary manners, which 
had so long; prevailed over French society, yielded to modes of 
superior refinement; and the " teiniure du ridicule" [tinge of ri- 
dicule] which characterizes exaggeration, faded into a propriety 
adapted to all principles, it was the wisdom of the reigning chief 
to efface the recollection of the horrors, which had marked those 
days of violence, and to adopt the same merciful policy, by which 
Henry IV. obliterated the dissentions of the League. Even his 
personal enemies were forgiven, if they were neglected.^ while 
not one of his personal friends was forgotten.* Among the first 
as to whom he sent the legion of honour, were two of .his 

ter, who had lived in habits of intimacy with the holy father, as blending- in 
his character the eager curiosity and simplicity of a recluse with great natu- 
ral shrewdness and intelligence. Paris opened a new scene of observation to 

"nified monk, and he expressed his wonder and admiration, with all 
the naivete' and frankness of childhood, " I have seen a great deal," he ob- 
served to one whom Napoleon had recommended to him as a Ciceroni, " but 
I have not yet seen the palais-royal .- pray, let us go there." K St. Pire" re- 
turned the baron, " c'est impossible," [Holy father, it is impossible,] adding, 
that it would commit the character of his holiness, and compromise the dis- 
cretion of his guide. " But I would go," replied the pope, eagerly, " traves- 
tito da curato." This extraordinary masquerade did not, however, take place. 
While the pope remained in Paris, a number of idle boys made a trade of 
assembling under his windows, to sell his benediction: which they did fly 
crying " lea beni dictions du tr^es St. Pere, pour deux sous;" [the benedictions 
of the most Holy Father, for two-pence.] and when they had collected a 
crowd, and received the money, they commenced an outcry, calling to the 
pope to appear and bestow his benediction, in the same manner as the Eng- 
lish mob called for " Blucher" and " Emperor," when those personages were 
in London. The pope always complied with their demand, appeared, and 
gave the required benediction, perfectly unconscious of the trick that was 
played on him. — His.amiable manners won golden opinions from all who had 
access to him; and as far as he was known in France, either as guest or pri- 
soner, he was popular, pitied, and admired. 

§ " H va etre amnestif.6" [He is going to be amnestied] was an expression 
in vogue, when I was in Paris, for a state prisoner who was about to be exe- 
cuted. With Napoleon, the word M amnesty" always preserved its original 
signification. 

* When it was represented to Napoleon, that Camot was conspiring 
against him, he replied, " Lui! — it est incapable de truhison" [he' he is incapa- 
ble of treason.] A remarkable instance of his dislike to the revival of past 
events occurred, when Chateaubriand was received at the Institute, in the 
place of the celebrated Chenier. Upon this occasion Chateau Driand, in the 
eloge of his predecessor, alluded to the part that brilliant wit had taken in 
the revolution, and revived the recollection of times, which it was so neces- 
sary to burv in oblivion. The emperor would not hear of this firebrand being 
thrown; and the illustrious martyr was rejected from the number of the 
elect, although in the same discourse he had lavished the most boundless 
homage on the man he h<u 1 with so many epithets of opprobrium, 

but whom, in his Aiala, he declares was sent trom heaven, " en itgne de ri- 

Hon, quand il est la» as a symbol of reconciliation, when he 

M 



g£ SOCIETY. 

early companions, who rejected them indignantly, as pledges of 
a despotism they never intended to acknowledge.* And if some 
of the many he raised, betrayed him, and shamed themselves, 
even his enemies acquit him of ever forgetting a favour, or 
neglecting a friend. 

But ambition, and the world, alike conspired to turn the head 
of a man, who, with qualities to fight his way to the summit of 
human greatness, wanted the higher, rarer gift, to preserve his 
equilibrium in the giddy point, to which he had raised himself. 
His mighty fall was preluded by all those symptoms of error 
and frailty, which seem to have accompanied the possession 
of unlimited power; which made the madness of Alexander, 
and produced the downfall of the Caesars. The nation he had 
dazzled, rather than degraded, watched with suspicious jeal- 
ousy the strengthening of his power, and the extension of his 
influence. Had it chosen a despotic form of government, un- 
questionably it would have preferred Napoleon for its chief; — 
but the fermentation of revolutionary feelings had now subsi- 
ded into principles of constitutional right, and of rational 
liberty. England had long been the model of France, and she 
then little dreamed that England would be the first to start 
forth, to forbid the imitation of her own bright example, or, by 
the all-prevailing alchymy of superior force, change her chain 
of gold into links of lead, rescuing her from the lion's grasp, 
only to submit her to the influence of the torpedo.f 

When it was believed that Napoleon had said, « J'etouffe en 
Europe, il faut respirer en Asie" [«< I am stifled in Europe — I 
must breathe in Asia,"] the sentence^ was taken by the people 

* Monsieur le Mercier, and Monsieur Guinguene, both obstinately refused 
the favours he intended them, without forfeiting- his regard, or incurring his 
persecution. It is a singular circumstance, that of the multitude of persons, 
devoted friends, and avowed enemies, of Napoleon, who talked to me respecting 
him, not one accused him of ingratitude. A republican, who had been the 
friend of his youth, but who had refused some distinctions be had offered him, 
told me that the Emperor one day in conversation made tins remark to him : 
" Je ne suis pas bon, si vous voulez, metis je suis sitr" [" I am not good (if you must 
have it so) but I am sure."] — And, in fact, added this person, " on pourroii tou- 
jour?! compter suv lui" [" one could always depend on him."] 

j-The French fully expected that the allies would leave them to the choice 
of their own government, if they remained faithful to the treaty of Paris. 

$ When the venerable Cregoire, the ex-bishop of Blois, who always op- 
posed the views of Buonaparte in the senate, spoke against the creation of the 
new nobility, he made some allusion to Cxsar. Buonaparte observed with a 
smile, " JPourquoi s" 1 arise t-il de purler de nous avtres ?" ["Why docs he speak 
of us."] 

. One of his flatterers observing to him, that the nation looked up to him, "as 
a god .'" he shrugged his shoulders, and replied, " Un dieu ! cfeet la un cul-de- 
sac" [" A god ! there is no going beyond that."] After the battle of Marengo, 
it was observed to him that not one of his staff was killed : he replied, " 7/? 
t'ioient avec mot, ma fortune les prtservait" ["They were with me, my fortune- 
preserved them."] 



SOCIETY. gg 

as the epigraph to his ambition ; and when public opinion 
loosened from the chief, public spirit rallied the nation. The 
explosion against domestic tyranny was universal ; but no pro- 
vision was made against foreign conquest ; and the country 
and the ruler, the temple and the idol, fell together. To have 
moved steadily in the dazzling sphere that fate had assigned 
him, was all that was required of this meteor of a moment. — • 
But retrograding into old systems, he soon fell, to rise indeed 
for a moment, to irradiate and amaze, and then sunk, to rise 
no more. But though his light be extinguished, the track of 
his course will long brighten the political horizon of Europe. 
Others will gleam, where he shone, and fade, and be forgotten; 
but though many will rejoice in his extinction, none will ever 
forget the splendor of his blaze, nor the rapidity of his motion. 
*********** 

My visit to the capital of France was paid in the spring of 
1816 ; and whatever length of days be granted me, I shall 
always recur to that period as among the few delightful epochs, 
preserved in the memory of the heart, over which time holds no 
influence, and to which even selfishness may turn, when sensi- 
bility shall be no more. Circumstances the most flattering 
rendered my position in French society the most favourable, 
for that general view of the several orders, which the peculiar 
events of the times had multiplied and assembled in Paris. The 
agitated surface, still heaving with recent commotion, was 
strewn with relics of remote time, thrown up from the bosom 
of oblivion ; and it was covered with specimens of all the re- 
cent political systems, which had reigned in France, since the 
first great social irruption. Characters belonging to different 
ages; opinions supported in distant eras; dogmas the most 
novel; prejudices the most antiquated; philosophy the most 
sceptical ; bigotry the most inveterate ; opposition the most vio- 
lent; submission the most abject; — all appeared mingling on 
the scene of daily intercourse, as if the discomfiture of some 
powerful enchanter had suddenly released the multifarious vic- 
tims of his magical influence, who, resuming their peculiar 
forms, presented an assemblage at once the most singular and 
the most contradictory. 

Among many of the various groups, which made up the 
pleasant masquerade of Parisian society, I had the good fortune 
to be introduced, through the medium of some light effusions, 
for which an elegant translation had obtained some popularity. 
Known alike to <« royalistes modeves," and to " royalistes exa- 
geres," [« moderate royalists, and violent royalists,"] to con- 
stitutionalists and to imperialists, were I to score up the sum* 
of kindness I received from each, it would he difficult to decide 



g^ SOCIETY. 

in whose favour the balance of my account would turn. But 
while I endeavour to »* catch the living manners as they rise," 
I would anxiously impress the conviction that I am painting 
classes, wot individuals ; and that, in -generalizing the features, 
which mark the peculiar properties of each order in the social 
system, it is my wish to tread lightly on the amour-propre [self- 
love] of a people, whose excellence and virtue it is to respect, 
and to spare, the amour-propre of all the world. 

The interregnum, which occurred in the French government, 
in 1814 and 1815, was 2l pierre de louche [touchstone] of public 
opinion, and evinced the progress which constitutional principles 
had made in the nation. Those who still survived of the con- 
stitutionalists of 1789; those who had raised their voices in the 
first cry of liberty, now raised them in the last; and appeared 
again upon the scene of action, still struggling against despot- 
ism, whatever form it might assume. They combatted not for 
the emperor nor for the king : for a series of twenty-five years 
they had preserved their principles unchanged: the terrors of 
an infuriate democracy had not daunted them; the splendor of 
a brilliant court did not dazzle them. They had long, indeed, 
abandoned their earlier Utopian dreams ; but they invariably 
cherished that pure bright spark of patriot fire, which had been 
their column, in the wilderness; which had shone upon the path 
of their exile, brightened the shed of their retreat; and which 
now, when genius has become suspected, and patriotism trea- 
sonable, shines over the abode of their voluntary retirement, 
and marks the spot, where wise men may come and worship. 

But though the La Fayettes, the Carnots, the Gregories, and 
the Guinguenes, have again receded from the unequal contest, 
to the bosom of philosophical retirement and of domestic virtue, 
their transient appearance on the scenes of public life revived 
many a drooping hope, and called forth spirits, and awakened 
energies, which still remain buoyant on the surface of society, 
to add to its fermentation, and to increase its interest. Almost 
the whole of those who make up the thinking class of society 
(including the men of professional and scientific research), are 
constitutionalists ; and with this large and superior portion of 
the population is now blended the greater number of the Buona- 
partists, who, hopeless of their own lost cause, and having no- 
thing to expect for themselves, extend their views, once confined 
to their party, to the political welfare of the country. Some, 
however, whom Buonaparte rescued from the deepest obscurity, 
are now the most zealous adherents of the king; and, com- 
muting only the terms royal and imperial, oiler the same ful- 
some homage to Louis XV111. they so profusely lavished on 
Napoleon. 



SOCIETY. 85 

While the mass of the population are stigmatized by the 
royalist party with tlie epithet of "les enfans de la revolution;" 
["the children of the revolution"] while, as I heard it expres- 
sed, «»/a race qui date de 1789 est proscrite par des vieiUards, et 
la jeunesse est marquee de la sceau de la reprobration," [» the 
race which dates from 1789 is proscribed by the old men, and 
the youth is marked with the seal of reprobation, "] these 
children of the revolution are distinguished by all those indica- 
tions of freshness, vigour and energy, which belong to a new, 
or a regenerated people. This circumstance, united with the 
inherent vivacity and impetuosity of the French .character, 
gives a tone of excitement and animation to their existence, 
which it is cheering to witness, and resuscitating to participate. 
That charming maxim of French urbanity, that in the saloon, 
"all ranks are equal;"' and the position, that « I 9 esprit est une 
dignite" [-genius is an honour*'] were an acknowledged truth 
even in the days of the most over-bearing aristocracy. But 
if there ever was a period in the history of any nation, in which 
man lorded it over situation, in which individual merit took 
precedence of all factitious circumstances, that period now exists 
in the society of France. — The nation is no longer to be de- 
ceived by sounds, nor amused by toys, to be 

"Pleas'd with a rattle, tickled with a straw." 

It has been experimentally proved, through the conflicting 
revolutions, how little artificial distinctions availed, though 
consecrated by time, and upheld by prejudice. Man alone is 
now the object with man; and talent the star, which governs 
the ascendant of public opinion.* 

While titles and riches have been scattered with a prodigal 
hand to plebeian merit, and to serviceable indigence, their 
splendor and dignity have been still further eclipsed by the 
changes resulting from frequent revolution ; which have built 
up and dispersed, elevated and degraded, with the transiency 
and instability of a fairy dream; and a primitive simplicity, an 
absence of ostentatious display, in the reigning modes of life, 
have arisen in France, which aptly assimilate themselves to the 
tone of the public mind. It is among these contemners of old 

* Public opinion has undergone a great change, since the late Due de Castries 
observed, in speaking of the noise made by the quarrel between Rousseau aad 
Diderot, " Cela est incroy able, on ne park que de ces gens*-lh ; gens, scirs e:ui, qui 
ti'ont point de maison, loges dans ten grenier ; on ne s'accouiurae pas a cela," ["It 
is incredible, that nothing is talked of but those people ; men of no condition, 
who have not even a house, who lodge in garrets : we cannot reconcile our- 
selves to this."] 



g@ SOCIETY. 

systems, these vigorous disciples of a practical philosophy, these 
children of the revolution, that the remains of a worn-out race, 
the mouldering relics of ancient errors, are again brought back, 
to throw their chilling influence over awakened energy, and to 
impose restraint upon new impulsions, like the snows, which 
fall on the^ burning bosom of Hecla, or the ashes of exhausted 
fires, which a passing wind scatters over the vigorous vegeta- 
tion of Sicilian plains. 

When the armies of the-allied sovereigns had restored the 
Bourbon dynasty to its ancient dominions, the royal repre- 
sentative of that long venerated race returned to the capital of 
his kingdom, like the antiquarian, who rises from the depths of 
Herculaneum or of Portici, encumbered with relics, and accom- 
panied with the remains of other times. The sudden resurrec- 
tion of a long-buried aristocracy, « bursting its searments," 
added another class to the existing arrangement of French 
society, brought into intimate contact the races of two distinct 
ages, and mingled the recovered medals of antiquity with the 
bolder stamped currency of a present coinage. The old emi- 
grant nobility, and their scarcely younger offspring, who 
accompanied, followed, or joined the king, from all parts of 
Europe, evinced, that in the transit of more than the quarter 
of a century, they had suffered only in the out-works of their 
construction, from the attacks of time, or the innovations of the 
age. The citadel of opinion was impregnable ; experience had 
made no breach, example could make no impression ; and the 
cumbrous edifice remained indestructible by reason or by proof: 
dark, compact, and narrow, covered by the mould of centuries, 
and guarded by prejudices, originating in ignorance, and cher- 
ished by selfishness. 

These inhabitants of the "sleeping wood," suddenly recalled 
from their suspended animation, soon convinced the children 
of the revolution, that « Us n'avaient rien appris, comme Us n'a- 
vaient rien oublie" [« they had learned nothing, and they had 
forgotten nothing,"] and that the "toad, adversity, ugly and 
venomous," wore not, for them, a " precious jewel in its head." 
The guidons [ensign-bearers] of the lily, too soon, placed the 
snowy standard of peace in the grasp of vengeance, who waved 
it over the monument of Quiberon,* and stained it with the 
blood of the brave, and the tears of the afflicted. This long- for- 
gotten faction, on their first return to France, rallied unani- 
mously round the throne of the Bourbons; under the common 
and long proscribed name of « royalistes." But personal in- 

* This monument was raised by the Bourbons, to commemorate the slaugh- 
ter of the emigrants at Quiberon. 



SOCIETY gf 

terest soon divided general opinion ; and the polypus dissection 
then distinguished itself under the classes of <» modere" and 
"ultra." 

The moderes ranged round the king, the ultras round the 
princes ; the one desired to keep, by moderation, what they had 
obtained by preference ; the others wished to seize by violence, 
what they had not gained by election. The « tout prendre' 9 
[« take all"] was the sole maxim and principle of both. The 
royalistes moderes, consisting of the « vielleries" [« old people"] 
of the old times, preserved an hereditary devotion to the repre- 
sentatives of their ancient kings, which they had imbibed in 
days peculiarly favourable to that sentiment ; and satisfied with 
their portion of the plunder, they submitted to share the spoils 
with the roiurier [plebeian,] Buonapartists, whose services and 
talents had placed them high in the ministry of their own re- 
gime. The ultras, made up of young men, led by younger 
chiefs, more ambitious than sordid, more devoted to the Bour- 
honfaction, than to the Bourbon representative, sought to guide 
the helm, as well as to « share the triumph and partake the 
gale." 

Thus, while personal interest and personal vanity appeared 
to be the basis of the political principles of both, the interests of 
the nation were left to the private discussion of those, who 
dared to turn their thoughts to that hazardous point, at the 
risk of subjecting themselves to the imputation of jacobinism. 
Balanced in the measure of their talent, and equally careless of 
the consequences of their conduct, these two factions occupy 
the foreground of the scene, and intimately associated yet fierce- 
ly opposed, avowing one principle, yet pursuing different mea- 
sures, they seem to imitate the warfare of the monkey tribes, 
who make war on their own species, and threatening ven- 
geance from their opposite trees, grind their teeth, and chatter, 
and grimace in expectation of that moment, when they may 
commence with safety to bite, and claw,* and to exterminate. 

"While such appeal's the political position of the royalists, 
ultra and moderes, their place and character, in private society, 
is marked by all the peculiar traits of their descent and cast. 
And though there are a multitude of exceptions to the general 
outline of the sketch, though taste and talent, domestic virtue 
and social amiability, are to be found amongst individuals of 
both factions, yet the prevailing hue of their « maniere d'etre™ 

* A very highly endowed ultra royalist, Mons. C , said to me a few days 

before I left Paris : " You may depend upon it, the rock on which we shall 
split will be vanity. All want to command, and none will obey. En attend- 
ant, our disputes and contentions are, tin delice povr les jacobins." [" In the mean 
time, our disputes and contentions are delightful to the jacobins.") 



g§ SOCIETY. 

[" manner of being" — a phrase exclusively French. — T.] has 
a strong taint of the old times; and something of the tone, 
style, and modes of the courts of the three last Louis's, is 
still to be found in the descendants of the " gens comme 
il faut," ["people of fashion, "] of those noted days. It is 
in these circles, that the bureaux d'esprit [benches of wit] 
of the hotel Rambouillet are still occasional!} erected : that t;ie 
" litterature du boudoir" ["literature of the boudoir"] passes 
for erudition, and that criticisms on the humour of Moiiere, or 
the genius of Racine, are repeated, after the decisions of the 
literary tribunals of Louis XIV. with all the air of their ori- 
ginal freshness. Here the encyclopaedists are still anthema- 
tized, en masse ; the Turgots and the Neckers are accused of 
founding the revolution; Voltaire placed under the ban of or- 
thodox opinion, and Rousseau condemned for his dangerous 
republicanism, in spite of that sentimental rhetoric, which is 
more than ever the Jargon of their class. Here Corucille is 
baroque, [rough,] Beaumarchais mauvais ton, [ungenteel.] and 
Mad. de Stael a phrasiere ; [an empty pompous talker:] while 
Mirabeau, Condorcet, and Champfort, condemned equally for 
their eloquence, their wit, and their philosophy, are consigned 
to ignominious celebrity, as dcs jacobins scelerats, [jacobin 
scoundrels.] 

In these circles the veteran voltiguer [flatterer] recurs to the 
" campaignes d la rose" [" campaigns of the ruse"] of Louis 
XV. and "fights all his battles e'er again," in tin- saloon of 
his ancient mistress; the ami de maison, [friend of the family,] 
grown grey in his chains, recalls the morals of the same times, 
and wields the fan, and hovers near the bergere [arm-chair] of 
his liege-lady, with a decent observance of all the rules ot es- 
tablished bienseance ; [propriety:] while many a ci-devant jcnne 
homme [a formerly young man] indulges in a certain tone of 
licensed pleasantry, tant soi pent libre, [perhaps a little free] 
which denotes him, though now « meagre and very rueful in his 
looks," to have once shone in the galaxy of fashion, " a chtir- 
mant polissonf ["a charming monkey,"] or an " amiable roue," 
[" an amiable whirligig,"] the Pomenars, or the Richelieu of 
other days. 

It is in the saloons of this party that anecdotes of royal sen- 
timent, and specimens of royal wit, circulate in endless repeti- 
tion* Here " I'esprit de Henri iT"." [** the witticisms of Henry 
the Fourth,"] is revived ; " les sentimens nobles" [" the noble 
sentiments"] of Louis the Great added to the collection of royal 
anas, and the whole compendium of bon mots of the reigning ja- 
milij rev-echoed with increasing admiration. Here the king is 
made to utter " k mot, qui pari du cozur;" [" the words which 



SOCIETY. gQ 

come from the heart;"] Monsieur, to express himself "tour- 
mire cliarmante, qui lui convient ;" [" with that charming 
grace which becomes him so well;"] the unrivalled courage 
of Mons. d'Angouleine is eternally set off by his repartee, of 
*< mon ami 9 j 9 ai la vue basse ;"* [« my friend, I am near-sight- 
ed ;"] — and the Due de Berrri, who affords no prise [hold — op- 
portunity] in wit or sentiment for loyal admiration, is extolled 
for a brusquerie, [bluntness,] that recalls the charming frank- 
ness of the founder of his family ; and " being little blessed 
with the set phrase of peace," is usually mentioned as a martial 
prince, bred in camps, and endowed with a certain degree of 
esprit de gamison, qui ltd sied a merveilie" [*« garrison wit, 
Which sits wonderfully well on him."] Terms hyperbolically 
ardent are applied to every member of the royal family : *' les 
princes cherts" [«< the beloved princes"] are adored by the ultras, 
and the " roi paternei" [« paternal king"] is « idolatre" [" idoliz- 
ed"] by all the moderes, [moderates.] With the sentiments and in- 
tellectual condition of the nation, both parties are equally un- 
acquainted ; and the population of the land is again divided in- 
to the menu peuple, [vulgar,] and the gens, comme it f aid, [peo- 
ple of fashion.] 

Among those of the elder royalists attached to the person of 
the king, and believing that they contributed to his restoration, 
there is a sort of lifeless animation, resembling the organic 
movements which survive the extinction of animal life, and 
which are evidenced in the hopping of a bird after decapitation. 
I have frequently amused myself by following the groupings of 
these loyal vieilleries, [old men,] who, like old Mercier, seem 
to continue living on merely "par curiosite, pour voir ce que cela 
deviendra," [" out of curiosity, to see what will become of them."] 
I remember one morning being present at a rencontre between 
two « voltigeursj de Louis XIV" [« beaux of Louis 14th,"] on 
the terrace of the Thuilleries. They were distinguished by the 
most dramatic features of their class; — the one was in his court- 
dress (for it was a levee day,) and with his chapeau de bras m 
one hand, and his snufF-box in the other, he exhibited a cos- 
tume, on which perhaps the bright eyes of a Pompadour had 
often rested : the other was en habit militaire, [in a military 
dress,] and might have been a spruce ensign, "joli comme uti 
cmur" [" as pretty as a heart," — a gallicism — T.] at the bat- 
tle of Fontenoy. Both were covered with crosses and ribbons, 
and they moved along under the trees, that had shaded their 

* Made in reply to a remark that he exposed his person too much, during 
a. reconnoitre. 

f The name given in derision to old military men, re-established in all th&- 
rank and privileges they enjoyed, before the revolution, 

N 



00 SOCIETY. 

youthful gaillardise, [frolics,] with the conscious, triumph of 
Moorish chiefs restored to their promised Alhainbra. Their 
telegraphic glasses communicated their mutual approach, and 
advancing chapeau bas, and shaking the powder from their 
ails de pigeon, [pigeon wings — side locks,] through a series of 
profound bows, they took their seat on the bench, which I oc- 
cupied, and began, « les nouvelles a la main" [« newspaper in 
hand,"] to discuss the business of the day. 

A levee, a review, a procession, and the installation of the 
king's bust, which in some remote town had been received with 
cries of « Vive le roi, millefois repetesS [" Long live the king, 
a thousand times repeated,"] were the subjects which led to a 
boundless eulogium on the royal family. The speeches made 
by the king and the Due dc Berri to Count Lynch were themes 
of extravagant admiration. — " Ah, mon Bleu, ouiS [" Ah, my 
God, yes,"] (said the courtier) "voild Men nos princes ! Et 
Vusuiyateur, monsieur le general! a-t-il jamais parte de la 
sorte T 9 — « Comment done, Monsieur le baron ! vous nous parlez, 
du tyran ? C'eoit un bourgeois de la rue St, Denis, dans toutes les 
fagons; Monsieur le baron, croijezbien que, si les jours du meilleur 
des rois etaient menaces, nous luiferions, de nous tons, un ram- 
part de nos corps; la, 99 [" there indeed are our princes! And 
the usurper, general! did he ever speak in that manner?" 
— « But, Baron, why do you talk of the tyrant? He was like a 
citizen of the rue St. Denis, in every thing he did. Be assured, 
Baron, that if the life of the best of kings should be threatened, 
we will form around him a rampart of our bodies."] 

« Monsieur k general," [" General,"] (exclaimed the baron, 
placing his little hat on three hairs of his toupct) « on ivapas 
besoin d'etre militaire pour penser aiim" [" to think thus, it is 
not necessary to be a military man."] Both now arose, in the ex- 
ultation of the moment; the one shuffling towards the palace; 
the other hobbling to the corps de garde of the Cent Suisses.* 

* Instances of this sort of resurrection are by no means uncommon; the vete- 
ran royalists abound, in a proportion perfectly incomprehensible. I myself 
knew a gentleman, who fell on the plains of Qui'oeron, and who had no reason 
to suppose himself alive for some hours. Left for dead on the field, but only 
severely wounded, he seized a favourable moment for resuscitation, assumed 
the uniform, arms, and credentials of a deceased republican soldier, who lay 
by his side, and after serving 1 some time, as a fifer, contrived to make his 
escape, and lives to tell the story. Many others too, since the restoration, 
seem to have returned from that " bourne" whence, it is vulgarly supposed, 
"no traveller returns." An "tleve de St. Cyr" ["a pupil of St. Cyr,"] keeps 
a "pension" or bourding-schuol, for young 1 ladies in the fanxbourg- St. (icrmaine : 
the coeffeur [hair-dresser] of Marie Antoinette affixes this distinction on a pla- 
card which promises " des nouveuntcs en tout genre" ["novelties of every de- 
scription,"] and Mons. de B, master of the ceremonies to Louis XV. preside^ 
over the steps and motions of the reigning beauties, after having- directed 
those of their grandmothers. 



SOCIETY. gj[ 

References to the tyrant and to the usurper are constantly- 
made by the courtiers of Louis XVIII. and even his usurpation 
seems to be not more an object of execration, than his inability 
te « representer noblement" [« appear with dignity."] The 
enthusiasm which always displayed itself in Paris, when he 
appeared in public, is now ascribed to the police ; and the nom- 
inate offered to the king, in the garden of the Thuilleries, is 
obstinately believed to be the unpurchased effusions of that 
loyalty, " qui part du emir" [•• which comes from the heart :"] 
for the term « emir" has become a distinguished article in the 
vocabulary of the French court ; and is held in equal estimation 
with «les 'graces etles amours/ 9 ["the loves and graces,"] and 
the other mythological emigrants, who have returned with the 
rest of the •< ancient regime." 

I was one evening waiting in the anti-room of the Duchess 
d'Angouleme, until my turn came for the honour of a present- 
ation to her royal highness, when the Princess de la T , 

who stood near me, was called by one of the ladies in waiting, to 
look at a group, dancing under the windows of the apartment. 
This circle, which was performing la ronde [the ring] to the air 
of "gai, gai, marions-nous," ["gay, gay, let us be married,"] 
sung by themselves, was composed of a few soldiers, and some 
women of no very equivocal appearance ; while the feeble 
cries of "viroe le rot," so often heard from childish voices 
were rarely strengthened by deeper tones of loyal exclamation. 
To the dame d'honneur, [lady of honour] however, all this ap- 
peared a rapturous symptom of universal loyalty, such as never 
had been witnessed in the best days of royal France. « Voyex 
done, princesse" [" See there, princess"] (she observed to Mad. 
de la T.) « quelle aUgresse du cozur I vodd la franche loyaute de 
nos bons vieux-tems ! A-t-on jamais vu une pareiUe joie 9 pendant 
Vusurpaiion du tyran ?" [«• what cheerfulness of heart ! There 
is the true loyalty of the good old time ! Was there ever seen 
any thing like it during the usurpation of the tyrant?"] 

There appears, indeed, among these ardent royalists|^rreso- 
lute determination to see every object, through the medium of 
their wishes. It is vain to talk to them of the past, or to lead 
them to the future ; they exist but for the present, in the per- 
suasion, that change can never come ; almost forgetting that 
it ever did occur : and believing that the beau siecle de Louis 
XIV, [the brilliant age of Louis the Fourteenth] is about to be 
restored in all its splendour, and extent of despotism. Every 
thing that is said, and done, by every member of the royal 
family, is repeated with interest, and detailed with delight; and 
if the infirmities of the monarch allowed him the innocent 
amusement, of pulling the chairs from under the ladies of the 



ng SOCIETY. 

court, like his great predecessor, there would be scarcely one 
amongst them who would not canvass the distinction of a 
cul-bute, [a tumble] like the former subservient Duchesses of 
Versailles. 

Having been separated from my party, at court, on the night 
of the grand convert, [supper] held in honour of the Due de 
Bern's marriage, I found myself seated amidst a little group of 
« royalistes purs" [" pure royalists"] who were commenting on 
the gastronomic talent displayed by his Majesty, and who 
seemed to consider his powers of mastication and of deglutition 
as among the virtues of his character, and the charms of his 
person. « Voyez, done," [« Only see"] said an old lady in an 
head-dress a la Maintenon, to a knight of St, Louis, decorated 
with a badge of his order, " Voyez notre bon rot, il mange comme- 
quatre, le roi I Mais c 9 est un appetit charmant, charmant ! ."' — 
"Eh, pourquoinon ?" ["Only see our good king, he eats as 
much as four! But he has a charming appetite, charming in- 
deed |" « and why not ?"] demanded the chevalier. « It est 
dhuie vigueur, le roi; mais d r ime vigneur extraordinaire," « Et 
Madame d'Jlngouleme," [*• The king has astonishing vigour; tru- 
ly astonishing." « And Madame d'Angouleme"] added the lady, 
" comme elle est embellie ce soir / et sa Majeste, quHl a Vair d 9 un 
pere de famille /" [«« how splendidly she is adorned this evening ! 
and his majesty, how much he has the look of the father of a 
family !" 

«» Evfin, madame," ["In short, madam*'] interrupted the 
chevalier, offering his snuff-box, whose lid represented the 
whole house of Bourbon, en papier mdche, ** Evfin, madame, 
cest un beau tableau de famille, que voild /»* [« the whole is a 
fine family picture."] 

Personal devotion to the king is not however exclusively con- 
fined to the elders of the privileged classes. It was a profane 
maxim of a profane French wit, that "les vieilles et les laities 
sont toujours pour Dieu," [« the old and the ugly ace always for 
God p?^ and his present Majesty of France seems to enjoy a 
similar devotion, as part of Ins divine right. Many of the 
aged members, of the middle classes of the capital, have re- 
mained true to the good old cause; and the petit s rentiers, [the 
petty renters] or stockholders of the fauxbourg St. Germaine 
(that centre of all antiquity and royalism.) assemble morning 
and evening before the windows of the Thuilleries, in the hope 
of seeing the king pass and repass to and from his morning's 
drive ; and they remain seated on the benches which front the 
facade of the palace, among piping fawns, and fighting gla- 

* I literally copy the jargon of loyalty as I took it down, de vive voLv, in my 
journal. 



SOCIETY. 93 

diators. These monumental figures contrast themselves, with 
peculiar force, to the marble wonders of the chisel which sur- 
round them, and to the flitting groups of the present age, which 
glide by, turning on them looks of the same pleased curiosity, 
as I have seen bestowed on the monumens Francois, at les petits 
dugustins. Here the costumes of the three reigns which pre- 
ceded the revolution are preserved and amicably united. Here 
is still to be seen the " hurlu-brelu" [" hurly-burly"] head-dress, 
the subject of so many of Mad. de Sevigne's pleasant letters. 
Here too may be found the bonnets a papillons pointes, [caps 
witli pointed ears,] and petites cometes of the du Deffands and 
Geofrins.with thejichus de soufiet, [calashes,] and the more mo- 
dern neglige [negligee or undress] of the Polignacs and Lam- 
balles. These venerable votaries of loyalty, who have so long 
« owed heaven a death," that they seem to have been forgot- 
ten by their creditor, are chiefly females. They are always ac- 
companied by a cortege [train] of little dogs, which, half-shorn, 
and half-fed, fastened to girdles, no longer gift of the graces, by 
ribbons no longer « coulcurde rose," [*< rose-colour,"] are under 
the jurisdiction of large fans, frequently extended to correct the 
« petites folies" of these Sylphides and Fideles, when they sport 
round their ancient mistresses, with unbecoming levity. 

The daily course of patience, to which these veteran dames 
submit, is relieved by the employments of knitting and netting, 
and by a causerie in all the set phrase and jargon of better 
times. The speculations are endless, whether the king will, or 
will not drive out; and the most ingenious anagrams are disco- 
vered in those portentous words, « Buonaparte" and « Revolu- 
tion," which predicted the downfall of the one, and the extinc- 
tion of the other.* 

At the apparition of the king, passing the balcony surround- 
ed by his guards (for every room in the palace exhibits soldiers 
in the windows,) dogs, fans, and anagrams are all instantly 
forgotten. A host of ci-devant white handkerchiefs wave in the 
air ; and " vive le roi" is « mille fois repete^ [" a thousand 
times repeated,'] in sounds that scarcely reach the gracious 
ear, for which they are intended. 

These phalanxes of antiquarian loyalty, male and female, 
were daily thinning, however, when I left France, from the 
total inability of the " best of kings" to provide for his venera- 
ble adherents, in a manner suitable to their spirited ambition 
and sanguine hopes. All who can furnish up an old claim to 
the distinction of zgentil homme nc 9 (gentleman born,) call for 

* " La France vent son roi" [" France will have her king,"] and " un Corse 
laftmra," ["a Corsican will finish it,"] are prophecies detected by loyal ana- 
gTammatists, in the words " Revohttion Fruncaise" 



04 SOCIETY. 

restitution of lands, rights, and privileges ; and though they, 
many of them, return to their country, at the end of twenty- 
five years, neither more indigent nor more insignificant than 
when they left it, they raise the outcry against royal ingrati- 
tude, mount a croix de St. Louis, (cross of St. Louis,) talk most 
pathetically of the ancient splendor of their chateau, and their 
ierres, [their castle and their estates,] and exclaim against the 
impolicy of the king, in neglecting his fidele noblesse, [faithful 
nobility,] who would alone form a fence round his throne ! ! 
such a fence as they formed round the throne of his unfortu- 
nate brother ! 

These ancient « gentU-hommes nes, a source of annoyance to 
the king and to his ministers, afford endless subject of amuse- 
mentto the naughty children of the revolution," who are fool- 
ish enough to risk their safety, or their interests, for a joke. 

The young, gallant and handsome Count de L , grandson 

of Mad. de Genlis, lost his promotion in the army, from his 
too close and admirable representation of one of these "Jiers 
marquis" [_" haughty marquisses."] 

" The very head and front of his offence was this, 
No more."* 

While the young etourdis [giddy-brains] thus occasionally 
amuse themselves with these dangerous imitations, the professed 
wits of the capital, who have not yet enlisted in the service of 
the Apollo and the Muses of the royal Pantheon, produce daily 
some squib against the exgentility of France. From these I 

* The young" ComtedeL presented himself, in the full costume of Louis 

XIV. at a fashionable cafe, [coffee house,] where a number of his brother of- 
ficers were assembled. Passing for vn ancicn general, [an old general,] he ex- 
pressed himself with great violence against the present state of military tactics ; 
and without being discovered, excited much entertainment in his unsuspecting 
comrades Triumphant with the success of his dramatic representation, he 
finished his evening by walking in the gardens of the Thuilleries. The next 
day, when he presented himself at the levee of the minister, to obtain his 

promised colonelcy of the regiment,he was informed that his Majesty had 

withdrawn his consent to that arrangement. Mon. L received this disap- 
pointment with resignation and cheerfulness, and passing from the portals of 
the palace to the terrace of the Thuilleries, he suddenly met the very type and 
model of the character he had represented the night before, in the figure of an 
old " voltigeiir," with a coeffure a V 'oison royal,[" an old beau with his hair drest 
in the form of wings,"] and all the insignia of his order. "Without knowing 
him, he immediately counselled him to retire, and change his dress, if he did 
not wish to excite the resentment of the king; "for, monsieur," he added, 
" only from my adopting the cQstume, which becomes you so well, I have just 

lost the colonelcy of the regiment." "The veritable .lmj)lwtrion" [" the 

true Amphytrion,"] equally overwhelmed with gratitude and consternation, as- 
sured Moris. L — — he would immediately profit by his kind advice, having 
retained the dress he had worn in the court of Louis XV. as that most gracious 
to the eyes of his illustrious descendant, 



SOCIETY. 95 

select the following chanson, [song.] as being the most recent, 
rather than the most bitter, philippic against the venerable order 
of the resurrection, 

LE MARQUIS DE CARABUS * 
Air. — Le grand Roi Dagobert. 



Voyez fice er Marquis, 

Nous traitant en peuple conquis, 

Son coursier dechame, 

De loin, chez nous l'a rainene. 

Vers son vieux castel 

Ce noble mortel 

Marche, en brandissant 

Un sabre innocent. 

Chapeau bas, chapeau bas. 

Gloire au Marquis de Carabus ! 

Aumoniers, Chatelains, 
Yassaux, vavasseurs, et villains, 
C'a'c moi, (dit-il) c'est moi, 
Qui seul a retabli mon roi. 
Maisilne me rend 
Les droits de mon rang; 
Avec moi, corbleu! 
II verra beau jeu. 
Chapeau bas, kc. &c. 

Vivons done en repos ; 

Muis l'on m'ose parler d'impots. 

A l'etat, pour son bien, 

Un gentil-homme ne doit rien. 

Grace a mes creneaux, 

A mes arsenaux, 

.le puis au prefet 

Dire un peu son fait. 

Chapeau bas, &c. &.c. 

Pour nous calomnier, 

Bien qu'on a parle d'une maniere, 

Ma famille eut, pour chef, 

Un des fils de Pepin le bref. 



D'apres mon blason, 
Je vois ma maison 
Plus noble, ma foi, 
Que celle du roi ! 
Chapeau bas, &c. &c. 

Qiu me resisteroit ? 
La marquise a le tabouret, 
Pour etre eve que, un jour, 
Mon dernier fils suivra la cour, 
Mons fils, le baron, 
(Quoiqu'un peu poltron,) 
Yeut avoir des croix, 
11 en aura trois. 
Chapeau bas, &c. &c. 

Pretres, que nous vengeons, 
Levez la dime, et partageons, 
A toi, peuf'le animal, 
Porte encore le bat feodal. 
Seuls nous vous chasserons, 
Et tons vos tendrons 
Subiront l'honneur, 
Du droit de seigneur. 
Chapeau bas, &.c. &c. 

Cure, faiston devoir, 

Remplis pour nous ton encensoir. 

Yous, pages, et valets, 

Guerre au villains, et ressez-les. 

Que de mes ayeux 

Ces droits glorieux 

Passent, tous entiers, 

A mesheritiers. 

Chapeau bas, Sec. he. 



A few years back, all ranks and distinctions were lost in the 
affectedly simple appellations of citoyen [citizen] and titouenne* 
At present France is inundated with titles, multiplied far be- 
yond the heraldic dignities of those aristocratical days, when, 



[• The following is the signification of the first stanza: "Look at that proud 
Marquis whom his wretched lean courser has brought back to us : See how 
he treats us like a "conquered people." Look how the noble mortal, marches 
towards his old castle brandishing his harmless sabre. Hats off, hats off. Glorv 
to the Marquis of Carabus, &c. &c."] 



g5 SOCIETY. 

according to Smollet, " Mons. le Comte" called to his son, in 
the business of their noble verger, [yard,] " Mons. le Marquis, 
avez>-vous donnS a manger anx cochons?" [" Monsieur Marquis, 
have you fed the pigs?"] Every body now, who affects loyalty 
to the reigning dynasty, professes it under the sanction of a 
title ; and I observed that both the superior and inferior orders 
of society gave a peculiar emphasis to every revived mark of 
nobility. Even the valet de chambre, as he flung open the 
folding-doors of the saloon, vociferated the names of the suc- 
cessive guests, with a marked and cadenced pronunciation, of 
madame-la-baronne, madame-la-comtesse, monsieur le due, and 
monsieur le vicomte ! Meantime the legitimate, or pretended, 
owners of these titles appear to be wrapt in ecstacy over the 
long-forgotten distinctions, which, at all times unaccompanied 
by legislative functions or political influence, are now but sel- 
dom backed by that opulence, which is in itself a rankj and 
they are indeed 

' full of sound, 



Signifying" nothing." 

By a singular contradiction, however, rank, of even the 
highest orders, takes no precedence in private society. Even 
among the old noblesse, there is a sort of pete-mele confusion in 
the ingress and egress from assemblies, dinner-parties, and 
soirees, [evening parties] which no one endeavours to arrange, 
by either giving or taking the pas, [precedence.] Speaking on 
this subject to one, who speaks well upon all, with whom it is 
always instruction to converse, and to whom it is delightful to 
listen, the Comtesse Pastoret, she observed : « It is high birth 
rather than high rank that is estimated in France; but neither 
are marked in private society by those minute forms of pre- 
cedence, to which you free-born republican English pay such 
minute observance. At court, our dukes have their place, and 
our duchesses their tabourets, [tabouret, a sort of stool] but in 
the saloon, if any distinction is made, it is in favour of genius, 
celebrity, or age ; while to be a stranger, is an etat [rank] in 
itself." 

Rank is very ill defined in France, even by the most strenu- 
ous advocates for its privileges. I was informed that a baron 
is sometimes more noble than a duke ; and on my asking a 

royalist, whether Mons. D was a "gentU-homme ne?" 

["gentleman born"] he replied, "No : he is tVune naissance no- 
ble, but he is not gentU-homme," [« he is of noble birth, but he is 
not a gentleman."] J asked what constitutes that rank in the 
state ; and he made this singular reply : « the privilege of going 



Society. qj 

in the king's coach." Thus the rank, which in England gives 
its possessor a seat in the senate, in France may not entitle him 
to " a seat in the king's coach." What must have been the geni- 
us of the old government, when the energy and spirit of the 
nobility were broken down to such distinctions as these ! To be 
permitted to accompany Louis le Ghrand, in his drives from 
Versailles to Marli, and from Marli to Versailles, (the great 
occupation of his life) was an honour of which all his nobles 
were proudly ambitious ; and Madame de Sevigne describes one 
of these royal promenades, en votture, [carriage-parties] in a 
manner that gives a fair picture of the morals, and spirit of tire 
times. The king went first, in a caliche [calash] with his mis- 
tress, her sister, and brothers ; the noble Mortimarts and 
Thianges ! then followed the queen and princesses, legitimate 
and illegitimate.* 

However striking these evidences of social degradation may 
be, to the eye of moral and political philosophy, to the glance 
©f the genuine French royalist they are not perceptible ; or, if 
observed, are but considered as trifling « egaremens du cozur et 
de Vesprit" ["wanderings of the heart and mind"] in the royal 
legislators, who at once modelled and executed their own sys- 
tem of government. On this subject they will hear no reason- 
ing : unable to deny, what it is impossible to defend, they cut 
short all argument with : «« cependant je voudrois que tout cela 
fusse, comme dans le bon vieux terns," [<« however, I wish all this 
went on as it did in the good old times."] 

A very clever and intimate friend of mine at Paris, with con- 
siderable talent and some wit, had gotten deeply entangled with 
the royalistes enrages; and was herself indeed enragee, to a 
point that was sometimes extremely amusing. We were chat- 
ting one morning, when a royalist acquaintance joined us, and 
mentioned an ordinance of the king's, which directed the for- 
mation of a new military school, after the model of that insti- 
tuted in 1750, for the education of the young nobility. I could 
not help remarking, that I doubted whether this new school, 
upon old rules, would assimilate in its systems with the tactics 
of the military and polytechnic seminaries, formed during the 
revolution. My little enragee flew into a paroxysm of loyal in- 
dignation, and interrupted me with : « mais, ma chert ne me 
parlez pas de vos ecoles poly techniques," ,[" but, my dear, do 
not talk to me of the polytechnic schools,"] those hot-beds of 
jacobinism and brigandage^ [robbery.] It is our wish (nous 

* The Princess de Conti was the natural daughter of the king", by Mad. de la 
Valiere, and was always of these parties. 

■j-The eleves [pupils] of the ecole militaire [military schools] of Mentz received 
the Duke de Berri, with tbeir arms crossed, in consequence of some obserra- 

o 



Qg SOCIETY. 

autresj [we royalists] that the rising generation should be shut 
up, and educated in a profound ignorance of all that has hap- 
pened for these last thirty years ; and that on coming forth into 
the world, they might find every thing in statu quo, as it was 
in the beau siecle de Louis XIV," [the brilliant age of Louis 
14th.J 

" And the Bastille ?" I asked. 

« Eh, mais oui, ma chere ; et la Bastille aussi," ["Oh, yes, 
my dear; and the Bastile also."] 

The Bastille, she added, was a sort of maison de plaisance, 
[pleasant retreat,] when men of rank were sent to it, for hav- 
ing incurred the displeasure of the king ; as in the instance of 
the Duke de Richelieu, who was visited there by all the beau- 
tiful princesses of that day, who were eperdument [distractedly] 
in love with him. That for the lie du peuple, [the dregs of the 
people,] it was, if any thing, too stately and too noble a place 
of confinement ; and as for the iron cages and subterraneous dun- 
geons, they were only for state criminals, who spoke against 
the king and his government — « et tout cela, c 9 etoit tres juste," 
[" and all that was very right."] But I insisted on the facility 
with which a lettre de cachet might be procured, to shut up such 
suspected criminals, before any form of justice had pronounced 
them guilty. 

She shrugged her shoulders and replied : " Pour les lettres de 
cachet, on en peut dire antant de Men que de mail tene%, ma 
chere ! [As to the lettres de cachet they did as much good as 
evil ! now listen my dear !] Suppose I had a brother whose con^ 
duct disgraced our family, would you have us expose his shame, 
and throw an odium on our house, by suffering him to come in- 
to a court of justice? No, there was a time, when, under such 
circumstances, the honour and dignity of a noble family was 
saved ; and a lettre de cachet got rid of the mauvais sujet, [of- 
fender,] and buried together the criminal and the crime — Eh 
bien, iljaut toujour s esperer que le bon terns reviendra 111" [Well, 
let us still hope that those good times will return.] 

I quote these sentiments, uttered by a woman of rank, talent, 
and education, as being (I believe very generally) those of the 
party to which she belonged. 

While the royalists or personal adherents to the representa- 
tive of the Capets and the Bourbons take for their device the 

tions falling from his royal highness, signifying that he deemed these military 
Schools little better than nests of jacobinism and brigandage. 

On his enquiring, in rather a rough manner, what was to be learned in these 
seminaries? the chief master replied: " JMon Prince, c'est une ecole, ou on ap- 
prendd mourirpour sa patrie" [" Prince, it is a school where we learn to die for 
Qur country."] 



SOCIETY. 9fl 

well-known cry of Vendean loyalty, " vive le roi, qwand meme, 99 
["long live the king, all the same,"] and display upon all oc- 
casions sentiments worthy of this head-long devotion ; the ultras 
are by no means equally unreserved in their principles of at- 
tachment to the person and measures of the king. Louis XVIII. 
is treated by them as " a good, easy man," whose moderation 
is weakness ; who, unnecessarily false, and injudiciously arbi- 
trary, excludes from power those who are most capable of ex- 
ercising it; and merely contents himself with chopping off a 
few hands and heads, when hecatombs should bleed, to appease 
the spirit of unglutted vengeance, and to clear the kingdom of 
such persons and principles as he now suffers to share his coun- 
cils, and dictate his ordinances. 

Upon one occasion, an ultra, speaking of the king in terms 
of reprobation, that amounted nearly to accusing his most 
Christian Majesty of jacobinism and infidelity, I could not help 
asking him ; " le roi done, est-il royaliste P 9 " Voila, madame, 
ce que nous doutons," [" is not the king, then, a royalist ?" 
" That, madam, is what we are in doubt of,"] was the reply. 

In another instance, I was driving through the Bois de Bou- 
logne, with a lady of the same political sentiments, when the 
desolated state of that once beautiful spot called forth her 
lamentations and reproaches. Addressing me in a tone of com- 
plaint, as though it had been I who had carried off « Birnham 
wood to Dunsinane, 9 ' she exclaimed, « Voila, madame, voila 
Vouvrage de vous autres Anglais," [" There madam, that is the 
work of your English."] I could not help feeling piqued at 
her ingratitude for the services which, at least, had been ren- 
dered to her party ; and I answered, « Eh Men, madame, vous 
ave% un roi, en echange de votre bois, 99 [" Well, madam, you 
have a king in exchange for your trees."] She shrugged 
her shoulders, shook her head, and raised her eyebrows ; and 
replied, in a broken sentence, " pour cela, ma chere dame — eh ! 
eh! que voulex-vous? 99 ["As to that my dear lady — ah! well, 
what would you have ?"] as if not quite satisfied with the equi- 
valent. 

I indeed observed upon all occasions, that the royalists and 
ultras showed a perfect insensibility to the services rendered 
them by the allies in general, and by the English in particular. 
1 remember walking with a party of ultras near the spot where 
Prince Blucher fell from his horse, when an Englishman of the 
party observed that it was there where the prince had broken 
some bone : and an ultra replied, apart, " If it had been his 
neck, it would have been no great matter." 

It is strange that even the Buonapartists and constitutional- 
ists, though protesting against the policy and falsehood of the 



100 SOCIETY. 

English government, express themselves more favourably to- 
wards the nation than the royalists ; who, though pleased with 
the restoration, cannot altogether brook the discreditable man- 
ner of their return, nor cease to feel that they have been too 
much obliged. It is certain, moreover, that the moral and po- 
litical feelings of the constitutionalists assimilate more closely 
with those maintained in England, than the notions of the ad- 
vocates of the old regime in France, who assert unceasingly, 
that the anglo-mania which prevailed immediately before the 
revolution, was among the leading causes of that event ; and 
that Voltaire's letters on England were for his country the 
most pernicious work he ever wrote.* 

The gradual alteration in tone and manner of the ultra circles, 
during my residence at Paris, was extremely obvious, and to an 
uninterested observer very amusing. They no longer seemed 
bound to « hint a fault, and hesitate dislike" to the measures 
of the government; but ventured, even in certain traits of 
amiable weakness discoverable in the character of his Majesty, 
to find subjects of pleasantry and sources of censure. Their 
once loud vociferations, in favour of the divine right of kings, 
to be absurd without ridicule, and arbitrary without blame, ap- 
pear now utterly forgotten or wholly recanted. 

The Buonapartist-ministry, as they term it, is treated with 
avowed contempt ; the measures of the court publicly reprobated ; 
and even the private friendships and tender predilections of the 
king receive but little quarter. The respect paid to le Pere la 
Chaise, by the courtiers of Louis XIV. is denied, by their de- 
scendants, to the Fere Elysee of Louis XVIII. And those no- 
ble dames,^ whose great-grandmothers canvassed a look from 
the mistress of that king, and were the associates of all her 
dissipated orgies, refuse their countenance to the innocent and 
platonic preference of the reigning sovereign. The ultra ladies 
openly exclaim against the degradation of a place, once so 
nobly filled, and now occupied by a "petite maitresse de pro- 
vince" [« a little country gentlewoman."] Although it is un- 
derstood, that Mad. de V holds her captive only by the de- 
licate chains of mind, yet this spiritual communion is ridiculed ; 

* They accuse England of all their misfortunes ; of originating the revolu- 
tion; of sending the emigrants to be slaughtered at Quiberon ; and of letting 
loose Buonaparte from Elba. Even still they consider the ex-emperor as a 
sort of bag-Jox, to be let loose, whenever the English ministry may be inclined 
to shoiu sport to Europe. 

f " Toutes les dames de la Reine font la compagnie de Madame de Montespan; 
On y joue tour a tour ; rien n'est cache, rien n'est secret." Lettres de Sevigne', 
vol. iii. ["All the queen's ladies associate with Madame de Montespan ; they 
are with her by turns ; nothing is concealed, nothing is secret." 

Smugness Letters. ] 



SOCIETY. 101 

and the roturiere Agnes Sorrel [plebeian] falls within the general 
maxim of the class, as to her intellectual charms, 

" Nul n'aura de l'esprit, 

Hors nous, et nos amis."* 

["Nobody has any mind, except us and our friends."] 

But while the king remains firm and true to his sentiments 
and attachments, no ties less pure disturb the moral propriety 
of his court ; and the royal family, it is observed, exhibit « un 
sublime et touchant tableau de toutes les vertus publiques et pri- 
rees,"f [" a sublime and affecting picture of all the virtues pub- 
lic and private."] No Madame du Barres now usurp a place 
"behind the throne, greater than the throne." Even bishops, 
who have long lived in holy wedlock with their revolutionary 
wives, have discarded them # and laymen, who for many years 
have lived without their cliires moites, [dear partners] have been 
obliged to take them back.§ All " liasons danger euses" [" dan- 
gerous connections' 9 ] are banished from a court, where piety 
and politics have usurped the place of gallantry and the graces ; 
as les petits ramoneurs, [little chimney-sweepers] once showed 
their sooty faces on the fans of French belles, instead of " the 
loves" whom they had dethroned. 

While, however, these two factions are engaged in frivolous 
discussions and puerile contests, in which their own interests 
and their own vanities alone hold any concern, the rest of the 
nation beholds in indignant silence their usurpation of all places 
of honour, emolument, and importance. It is the ancient no- 
blesse alone, who are sent into foreign countries to represent 
the land they have so long abandoned, and with whose existing 
principles and character their own can never assimilate. It is 
the adherents of the old regime, who command in the army, who 
lead in the senate ; and those, who for twenty-five years have 
been armed against France, now decide her fate, and rule over 

* A particular friend of Mad. P , in defending her from these malicious' 

imputations, said to me, " As to the king's visits to Mad. de P , it is not 

possible. He could not enter the door of her little apartment ; and such is her 
timidity, that when he addresses her at court, " le rouge lui tombe de lajoue," 
f_" the colour fades from her cheek."] Perfectly convinced myself of the 
innocence of the parties, 1 submit these proofs to the consideration of ultra- 
scepticism. 

f See Annales Politiques, August 19, 1816. 

+ When Mad. Talleyrand returned to France, to enforce the fulfilment of the 
conditions which induced her to submit to a separation from her right reve- 
rend lord, the king was graciously pleased to be jocular on the occasion with 
his grand chambellan, [grand chamberlain.] " Old, Sire" ["Yes, Sire,"] re- 
plied Mons. T. et son retour est pour moi tin vingt de JWars" [" his return is to 
me a twentieth of March."] (The day of Napoleon's return from Elba.) 

§Mons. Chateaubriand is said to be among the number of these " martyr ss." 



102 SOCIETY. 

lier vigorous population, upon principles and systems, whose 
aholition she had purchased with her blood, through a long and 
painful term of suffering, of conflict, and of misery. 

The society of Paris, after the second restoration of the 
Bourhons, appearing half in shade and half in relief, is not in- 
aptly imaged hy that condition of the moon, in which, although 
her whole orb be visible, the effulgence of her light proceeds 
only from a part. While the royaliste pur and the royaliste ex- 
agere, [the pure royalist and the violent royalist] buz, and bus- 
tle, and flutter on the scene, warmed into animation by the rays 
of princely protection, or of royal favour ; all who cannot claim 
these distinguishing epithets, "preserve the noiseless tenor of 
their way," and (to borrow a phrase of Cowley) "lead a life, 
as it were, by stealth." 

This unclassed, but suspected order, generally under the sur- 
veillance [care] of the police, and often little better than pri- 
soners to their own porters and valets, have, by some fatal ex- 
periences, been broken into circumspection ; and, in general, 
society are cautious not to risk opinions, which might unavail- 
ingly incur the penalty of exile, or perhaps of death. A cer- 
tain tone of pleasant equivoque, however, pervades their conver- 
sation, an ambushed raillery, which well supplies the place of 
bitter invective, or of whining complaint. How often, and how 
willingly, have I hastened to one of their « petits comitcs sous la 
rose," [*< little committees under the rose,"] from some cata- 
comb circle, where each monumental member spoke in his turn, 
or was called to order, if he infringed on the prescribed regu- 
larity of the conversation ! — With what pleasure have I flown 
to some forbidden ground, where, in the hallowed circle of ami- 
ty and confidence, wit and genius exercised their proscribed 
witcheries $* where talents, which were even tiien, under va- 

* " The world," said one of the most celebrated men of Europe to me, " is 
divided into five parts ; the four old quarters, and lesgem cV esprit; [people of 
talents ;] and tins fifth division is now placed on the list of proscription." 

" Who is that person ?" asked the Due de D s, pointing out a gentleman 

who had excited his attention by observations, somexohat bold, on a political 
subject of conversation. " & 'est unhomme d? 'esprit" ["He is a man of talents,"] 
was the reply. " Bon" [** True,"] added the due. " Je vols bien qu'il n* est pas 
zious autres." ["I see he is not one of us."] 

It is to the father of this nobleman, that the following anecdote is attributed. 
Being appointed to direct the festivities for the marriage of the count d'Artois, 
it was suggested to him, that an epithalamium was indispensable; and a per- 
son was recommended, to perform the job. Upon his consenting to this arrange- 
ment, the poet waited upon him for his directions, in what manner it should 
be got up. "Jlfa foi," [ "Really"] he replied, "je if en sais rietl : qu , il soit de ve- 
lours vert, brode d'or, comme les autres meubles /" [" I know nothing about it, let 
it be of green vclvei. embroidered with gold, like the rest of the furniture."] 



SOCIETY. £Q3 

rious forms, delighting the world, and pursuing their golden 
course to immortality, reserved some of their brightest beams 
to illumine the passing moments of private intercourse ; and 
where names were re-echoed, destined to live for ever, and al- 
ready traced in the luminous rolls of splendid celebrity ! This, 
indeed, was a society, often « dream'd of in my philosophy,' 5 
but never counted upon in my expectations. These were hours 
over which weariness held no jurisdiction ; and every sand in 
the glass turned to gold, as it feljty 

The society of Paris, taken as a whole, and including all par- 
ties and factions, is infinitely superior in point of taste, acquire-, 
ment, and courtesy, to that of the capital of any other nation. 
Paris, the elysium of men of letters, has always been the resort 
of foreigners of literary, scientific, and political eminence; and 
princes and potentates, who have influenced the destinies of na- 
tions, are seen mingling in her circles with the more valuable 
characters of Europe, whose works and names are destined ttf 
reach posterity, when titles of higher sound shall be forgotten, 
and the Humboldts, the Play fairs, the Davys, the Castis, the 
Canovas, now succeed, in the Parisian salons, to the Stern es, 
the Humes, the Walpoles, and Algarottis of other times. The 
talent for conversation so conspicuous in France among all 
classes, originating, perhaps, in the rapidity of perception and 
facility of combination of the people, was early perfected by in- 
stitutes, which, prohibiting an interference in matters of gov- 
ernment, determined the powers of national intellect to sub^ 
jects of social discussion, and tasteful analysis. 

In the days of the beautiful and unfortunate Marie Antoi- 
nette, the splendid court which surrounded her, opposing itself 
to the philosophers, who brought strength and energy into fash- 
ion, reduced the whole vocabulary of bon-ton, as an elegant 
courtier of that day assured me, to about twenty or thirty words ; 
and whoever presumed to exceed the stated boundary, was stig- 
matised as a bel esprit, and a phUosophe, [wit and aphilosopheri] 
The revolution has added much to the strength of conversa- 
tion, without having sacrificed either precision or finesse : 
[ingenuity :] and « causer Men," [«« to talk well,"] to be a « boi% 
raconteur" [« to be a good relater,"] is as sure a passport to the 
best society at this moment, as it was in the days of Louis XV. 

La Marquise de V , enumerating to me one day the ce- 
lebrated persons who formed her soirees before the revolution, 
dwelt with many touches of pathos upon Champfort, who had 
been amongst the number; and she concluded, in a tone of 
great emotion, « Ah, madame,fai perdu en lui mon meilleur — V 
fff Ah, madam, I have lost my best — " She paused for an 
instant, and I was about to fill up the break, which feeling ha I 



£04 SOCIETY. 

made, with the word "ami;" ["friend.;"] but she repeated, 
« J'ai perdu en lui mon meUleur causeur .'" [" I have lost my 
best talker !"] 

Excellent raconteurs are to be met with in every society of 
Paris ; and I have listened with wonder and admiration to the 
humour, facility, and point, with which tale after tale has been 
delivered, anecdotes related, and stories invented, for the amuse- 
ment of a circle, where every member bore his part, and where 
all played in their turn a wiMing audience, and all were equal 
to an amusing exhibition. That « melancholy and gentleman- 
like" pleasantry, produced in English society under the name 
of quizzing, is a sort of " maudlin mirth" unknown in the cir- 
cles of Paris; while ridicule, always dreaded, and ably wield- 
ed, falls almost exclusively upon unfounded pretension. Taste, 
as referable to the ordinances of society, is here so deeply stu- 
died, so well defined in her rules, and so thoroughly under- 
stood in her principles, that the decisions of temporary modes 
have but little influence on opinion. As far as I could observe, 
although a certain light persiflage [jesting] was much the fashion, 
nothing was ridiculed, but what was strictly ridimlous. 

The mind, thus permitted to take its utmost stretch, is nei- 
ther restrained by fashion, nor clouded by ennui, and a licensed 
discussion of all subjects is granted to those, who are known to 
be wearisome upon none. Admiration for talent is indeed as 
universal, as is the intelligence which appreciates it. Not a 
ray falls unreflected ; not a point drops unfelt ; all is rebound 
and elasticity. The society, like the climate, is bright and ge- 
nial ; and it is the peculiar and united influence of both, to set 
the mind and the blood into rapid circulation, to lighten huma- 
nity of half the ills of its inheritance, to enhance its pleasures, 
and multiply its enjoyments. 

But while private society still preserves its delightful charac- 
ter, the existing order of things occasionally interferes with its 
recreations; and the vigilant police sometimes obtrudes itself 
on the pleasures even of those who have nothing to dread from 
its discoveries. Leaving, at a late hour, an elegant and bril- 
liant circle, in the Rue Ville Eveque, in the fresh impression of 
my admiration, I was lamenting that all my hours were not so 
passed, that a short time would convey me far from the seen© 
of such enjoyment, when a number of soldiers, rushing from be- 
neath the shade of a high wall, surrounded the carriage, and 
seized the reins. Bastilles, lettres de cachet, mysterious arres- 
tations, and solitary confinements, started upon my scared im- 
agination, and 1 had already classed myself with the iron 
masque, and caged Mazarine ; with the Wilsons, Hutchinsons, 
and Bruccs, as I rapidly went over my possible peccadillos of 



SOCIETY. 105 

tese-majeste, when the leader of the military vociferated: " Qui 
sont ces Messieurs?" [« Who are these gentlemen?"] and order- 
ed the windows of the carriage to be let down. Our French 
servant, who was probably himself one of the police, immedi- 
ately entered upon the defensive, and declared that we were 
English persons returning to their hotel, from the Marquis de 

C 's ; adding significantly : " vous vous trompez, mes amis," 

[" you are mistaken my friends."] After a little muttering 
among the party, they drew back to their station under the 
wall, and we passed on, with feelings similar to those of the 
country mouse ; for though I acknowledged that « my lord 
alone knew how to live," still I could not help exclaiming, 

" Give me again my hollow tree, 
" My crust of bread — and liberty." 

As we drove on, I observed a fiacre pass us, and looking out 
of the window, perceived that it was stopped and surrounded, 
as we had been. The next morning we learned that the police 
had been in search of suspected persons,^ and our servant sug- 
gested that they were most likely concealed in the quarter 
where we had visited ; "for it is in the Rue d'Anjou (Jie added) 
that the two Queens live. 99 ] 

Amidst all the suspicion and distrust, which the weakness 
and vigilant jealousy of the present government are so well cal- 
culated to excite, in private society, each particular circle yields 
itself up to a freedom of discussion, which an entire confidence 
in the honour of its members can alone explain, or justify. 
The royalists abuse the ultras ; the ultras abuse the govern- 
ment ; the constitutionalists laugh at both, and just stopping 
short of treason, exercise their wit and their satire against the 
dominant parties, in songs, epigrams, anecdotes, and bon-mots. 

It has frequently occurred to me to have witnessed the most 
opposite discussions, and listened to the most contradictory opi- 
nions, in the course of the same evening; assisting at a royalist 
dinner, drinking ultra tea, and supping en repuUicaine. I have 
thus graduated on the political scale, from the extreme of loyal- 
ty to the last degree of rebellion. I was at a concert at the 
house of the charming Mad. de Beaucourt, the very Muse of 
royalism; and (almost won over to a cause recommended by 
her elegant compositions) I was joining in the chorus of •< Vive 
le roi, quand mime 99 ["long live the king, all the same,"] when 
I was reminded of an engagement I had made with a society of 

* We have occasionally seen the house of suspected persons guarded by 
soldiers, while the unfortunate inmates were undergoing" a scrutiny. 
| The Queen of Spain and her aster, who is queen of— I forget what 

P 



106 SOCIETY. 

another stamp and metal ; and I departed reluctantly, leaving 
many a gallant « chevalier de la bonne cause" [« knight of the 
good cause"] rapturously applauding the following loyal effu- 
sions, composed, played, and sung, hy their lovely hostess. 

PREUX CHEVALIER VEUT MOURIR POUR SON ROI. 

Preux chevalier, la gloire vous appelle, 

L'honneur vos dit de marcher sous saloi; 
Vouslejurez, vous lui serezfidele, 

Preux chevalier veut mourir pour son roi. (bis. J 

Auloin deja la trompette sonore 

Dans tous les cceurs a cause grand emoi ; 
Chant du depart, vous le redit encore : 

Preux chevaher veut mourir pour son roi. (bis, J 

Adieu, plaisirs, amour ; adieu, douce amie ; 

Adieu ces lieux, ou je recusta foi ; 
Cache tes pleurs, idole de ma vie ! 

Preux chevalier veut mourir pour son roi. (bis. J 

Le chevalier, sous la blanche banniere, 

Brulant d'ardeur, au loin repand l'effroi, 
En effrontant les hazards de la guerre, 

Preux chevalier veut mourir pour son roi. (bis. J 

L'air retentit du cri de la victoire ; 

Et du vainqueur tout a subi la loi. 
II fut heureux, par l'amour et la gloire, 

Le chevalier, qui servit bien son roi. (bis. J 

£THE BRAVE CHEVALIER WHO WOULD DIE FOR HIS KING."? 

Brave chevalier, when glory shall call you, 

(Though love in your path his sweet roses may fling) 

Will you not swear, though millions enthral you, 
To fight for your honour and die for your king. 

Brave chevalier, the war-trumpet sounding, 

To each gallant heart the remembrance shall bring 

That the true sons of France, the altar surrounding, 
Have sworn on their sabres to die for their king. 

K Farewell to friendship, to love, and to pleasure, 
"To all the dear ties round my bosom that cling, 

" Hide thy soft tears, my soul's fondest treasure, 
** The brave chevalier must die for his king." 

Bravely they fought beneath the white banner, 
While waved in their helmets the lily of spring, 

Sweet flow'r, may the pinions of victory fan her, 

As she shades his cold brow who has died for his Icing. 

.[* This is rather an imitation than a translation. T.l 

■ 



SOCIETY. IQJ 

But oh ! when the rage of the battle is over, 

And the clarions of conquest triumphantly ring, — 

How swells then the heart of the hero and lover, 
The brave chevalier who has served well his king] 

With this melodised loyalty, still breathing on my ear, I 
arrived in the anti-room of the hotel where I was to sup ; and 
while I was unshawling, I caught the first stanzas of the fol- 
lowing song, which my presence did not interrupt, and which, 
given with infinite humour, was received with rapturous plau- 
dits, warm and sincere as those bestowed on " Freux chevalier 
vent mourir pour son Roi." 

Ca v? tiendra pas.* 

Comme il faut prendre, en philosophe, 

Les accidens facheux et bons, 
J'ai supporte la catastrophe, 

Qui nous ramena les Bourbons. 
Pour me trouver sous leur passage, 

J'ai meme fait deux ou trois pas, 
Mais je me suis dis "e'est dommage" 

Ca n' tiendra pas, ga n' tiendra pas. 

? 
w' 

Quand Berri, D'Artois, D'Angouleme 

De ville en ville ont colporte, 
Des heritiers du diademe 

La dilitante Trinite. 
lis se donnoient pour des grands Princes, 

Mais bientot chacun dit, tout bas, 
Pour leurs grandeurs, ils sont trop mi?ices t 

Ca n* tiendra pas, ca n' tiendra pas. 

s 

II voudroit regner sur la France 

Ce Roi, qui parmi des Francais, 
Osa dire avec insolence : ' 

" Je dois ma Couronne aux Anglais."-^ 
Ah ? puisse encore la France entiere 

Dire, en la brisant en eclat, 
Si tu la dois a l'Angleterre, 

Ca n' tiendra pas, §a n' tiendra pas." 

[* This is the purport of the first stanza of the above song : — As it is our 
duty to bear like philosophers the good and evil accidents of life, I have sup- 
ported the catastrophe which brings us back the Bourbons. To get a sight of 
them, I have even gone two or three steps out of my way ; but I said to myself, 
" 'tis a pity." — This will not last, this will not last, &c. &c.] 

f"Je reconnais, qu' apres Dieu, e'est au Prince Regent, que je dois ma 
Couronne," [" I know that, next to God, it is the Prince Regent to whom I 
owe my crown."] , 

This public declaration was a deep wound to the honour of the nation, and is 
thus alluded to in one of the best pamphlets of the day. "Horribles paroles ! 
gravees trop profondement dans le coeur de tous les Francais, et qu'il est 
inutile de commenter" — [" Horrible words ! engraven too deeply on the hearts 
of all the French, and which it is useless to comment upon."] 



|08 SOCIETY"'. 

Je ris tout haut de la jactance 

De teas ces faquins d'emigres, 
Qui, par peur, ont quitte la France, 

Et qui, par faim,y sont rentres. 
Pauvre petit-fils de Henri Quatre ! 

Peux tu comter sur ces pieds-plats ? 
Pour toi, quand il faudra se battre, 

Ca n* tiendra pas, ca n' tiendra pas. 

s. 

On prodigue avec insolence 

Ces rubans, ces marques d'honneur, 
Que l'on arrache de la vaillance, 

Au vrai merite, a la valeur. 
De ce tort on peut vous absoudre ; 

Ces croix, ces rubans, ces crachats ; 
Messieurs, vous avez beau les coudre, 

Ca, n' tiendi'a pas, ca n' tiendra pas. 

The emperor Julian declared that he most admired, in his 
favourite Gauls, that gravity °f character, which resemhled his 
own. And though it may appear an affectation of singularity, 
to agree in this imperial opinion, as applied to the modern 
French, yet in all circles, among all classes, both in public and 
in private, I was struck with the tone of quietude and serious- 
ness, the capability of profound and sustained attention, distin- 
guishable equally in the parterres of their theatres, and the 
circles of their saloons. That wild exuberance of gaiety, that 
boisterous overflowing of animal spirits, found even under the 
sombre influence of our own less genial clime, is rarely or never 
seen in France. The gaiety of the French appeared to me, not 
more a constitutional than an intellectual vivacity ; a sort of 
moral energy, a prompt, though not a profound sensibility, 
which gives spirit to their manners, animation to their counte- 
nances, and force to their gesticulation. I have occasionally 
joined a circle of persons that looked 

" like their grandsires, cut in alabaster," 

until some subject of interesting discussion was accidentally in- 
troduced; and then every eye lighted up, every countenance 
brightened, and all became animated in gesture, and forcible 
in expression. The virtue of temperament most peculiarly 
French, is that even show of perpetual cheerfulness, which, what- 
ever may be its cause and origin, is most gracious in its effects 
and influence; which throws a ray even on their gravity, and 
is infinitely more delightful than their seemingly automaton vi- 
vacity. 

The circles of fashion, in Paris, are characterized by a for- 
mality in their arrangement, to which their sedentary propen- 



SOCIETY. 109 

sities in all ranks greatly contribute. Nobody is loco-motive, 
from a love of motion; there are no professed loungers, nor 
habitual walkers. — Every body sits or reclines, when, where, 
and as often as he can ; and chairs are provided not only for 
those who resort to the public gardens, but also in the streets, 
along the most fashionable Boulevards, and before all the cafes 
and estaminets, [coffee houses and taverns,] which are farmed 
^)ut at a very moderate price. The promenade of persons of 
fashion is merely a seat in the air. They drive to the gardens 
of the Thuilleries, alight from their carriages, and immediately 
take their seat under the shade of the noblest groves of ches- 
nuts, or in the perfumed atmosphere of roses and orange trees. 

In the gardens of the Luxembourg!!, swarms ,of the ancient 
inhabitants of that old-fashioned quarter, come forth with their 
primitive looks, antiquated costume and pet animals, to take 
their accustomed seats every evening, and remain in endless 
cmtserie, [chit-chat,] enjoying their favourite recreation in this 
lovely spot, until the shades of night send them home to their 
elevated lodgings, « an quatrieme" [*« in the fourth story."] 
The circles of the ancient noblesse [nobility] are formal and 
precise, to a degree that imposes perpetual restraint ; the ladies 
sre all seated a la ronde ; [in a circle ;] the gentlemen either 
leaning on the back of their chairs, or separated into small 
compact groups. Every body rises at the entrance of a new 
guest, and immediately resumes a seat^ which is never finally 
quitted until the moment of departure. There is no bustling, 
no gliding, no shifting of place for purposes of coquetry, or 
views of flirtation; all is repose and quietude among the most 
animated .and cheerful people in the world. My restlessness 
and activity was a source of great astonishment and amuse- 
ment : my walking constantly in the streets and public gardens, 
and my having nearly made the tour of Paris, on foot, were 
cited as unprecedented events in the history of female peram- 
bulation. 

Coming in very late one night, to a grand reunion, I made 
my excuse, by pleading the fatigue I had encountered during 
the day ; and 1 enumerated the different quarters of the town I 
had walked over, the public places I had visited, the sights I 
had seen, and the cards I had dropped. — I perceived my fair 
auditress listening to me at first with incredulous attention ; 
then « panting after me in vain," through all my movements, 
losing breath, changing colour, till at last she exclaimed : — 
" Tenez, madame, je n 9 en puis plus. Encore un pas f etje n'en 
reviendrai, de plus de quinze jours?" [" Stop madam, I can bear 
no more. If you go a step farther, I shall not recover for a 
fortnight ?"] 



110 SOCIETY. 

This love of sedentary ease struck me most particularly, at 
court. At one of the receptions of the Duchess de Berri (held 
at the Elysee Bourbon,) we were detained longer than had heen 
expected in an anti-roam, waiting the arrival of her royal high- 
ness from the Thuilleries, where she dined with the king. — 
There were a great many ladies, and hut few seats. On every 
side were to he heard. « Ah, seigneur dieu/ que c'est ennuijeux! 
Comment peut-on se tenir debout, comme ca? Madame, je meurs 
de fatigue, &c. &c. [** Ah ! how tired I am — How is it possi- 
ble to remain standing so long? Ah ! madam I am dying with 
fatigue."] A few nights before, at the play given at the Thuil- 
leries, several ladies, extremely well accommodated as I thought, 
left their places, in search of others, where they might be more 
at their ease ; while English ladies of the highest rank were 
I pushing and squeezing, and standing, too happy to be admitted, 
on any terms, to witness the spectacle of a court play, perform- 
ed in the magnificent theatre, which recalls all the splendour, 
and much more than the elegance of the famous salle des ma- 
chines [hall of machines] of Louis XIV. 

The formality however of those circles, in which it is the 
fashion to reflect the manners of the ancien regime, is not uni- 
versal. There are many sets and societies, in the immense 
range of Parisian company, in which the most perfect ease 
prevails ; where it is permitted to sit, or stand, or lounge, to 
put the. feet on the fender, or the elbow on the table, as repose may 
dictate, or familiarity induce; where the lady of the house 
does wot positively insist that her guest must occupy the distin- 
guished bergere, [arm-chair,] nor shudders at the vulgar choice 
of an humhie *• chaise de paille," ["rush-bottomed, chair;"] 
where each person is left to consult his own ease, according to 
the dictates of his own feelings, without reference to rides of 
etiquette, or to the established " bon-ton de la parfaitement bonne 
compaguie," [*< bon-ton of perfectly good company."] 

The great attraction and cement of society, in 1" ranee, is 
conversation; and, generally speaking, all forms and arrange- 
ments tend towards its promotion. No rival splendors, no os- 
tentatious display, no indiscriminate multitude make a part of 
its scheme. The talents, which lend their charm to social com- 
munion, are estimated far beyond the rank that might dignify, 
or the magnificence that might adorn it. In the saloon, " Virgil 
would take his place with Augustus, and Voltaire with Conde." 
I have seen Denon and Humboldt received (nth delight, where 
princes and ministers were beheld with indifference. 

"Et des hommes tels qu' cux marclicnt a cote des souvcrains." 
["Such men as these should walk by the side of sovereigns."] 



SOCIETY. m 

The societies of Paris have not yet admitted the necessity of 
lions, to keep ennui from the door, and to give stimulus to 
the promptly -exhausted attention of fashionable inanity. The 
Dehli-Lamas of haut ton, who yawn away their existence in the 
assemblies of London, are as unknown in Paris, as those intel- 
lectual jugglers, who play off their « quips and cranks,'' for 
the amusement of prosperous dulness, or those more manual 
artists, who "tumble" themselves into fashionable notoriety, 
and who frequently, without recompense, as without esteem, 
(i strut their hour upon the stage, and then are heard no more." 

Knowledge indeed is so much diffused, and a taste for sci- 
entific investigation so strenuously cultivated, in France, that 
judgment seems to approach the precision of mathematical cer- 
tainty ; and the natural tact of the people, the quickness of their 
perception, thus strengthened by cultivation, leaves pretension 
hopeless of success. There invariably « le savoir dans unfat, 
de-dent impertinence," [« knowledge in a coxcomb, becomes 
impertinence."] Many foreign charlatans, who have been for 
a time countenanced in England, and crowned with complete 
success in Ireland, have been the public laugh of Paris, the 
amusement of idlers, and the contempt of the learned. 

M Engage* vos sujets a se marier le plutot possible, 1 ' [« Induce 
your subjects to marry as soon as possible,''] is the political 
ordinance of a French writer, strictly obeyed in France. The 
youth of both sexes marry now, as formerly, much earlier than 
in England ; and without pausing to consider the effects of such 
premature unions, upon moral and political life, it is very ob- 
vious that the pleasures of private society gain materially by 
the change. INo manoeuvring mothers, nor candidate daugh- 
ters, appear upon the scene, bent exclusively on canvassing 
for a matrimonial election,* herissonees [guarded] with maternal 
amour-propre, [self-love,] or agitated by fears of rivalry, or 
hopes of conquest. No cautious heir, suspicious of undue in- 
fluence, wraps himself up in the safety of silence, and in the 
affectation of neglect, whispering his "nothings into the ear of 
his equally cautious companions, and violating every form 
ef good breeding, by a strict observance of the rules — of pru- 
dent resei-ce. Young unmarried women, indeed, seldom appear 
in society, except in the domestic circle, or at the bals-pares, 
[dress-balls,] which are sufficiently numerous in the gay season 
of Paris, to afford ample sources of pleasure and dissipation, 
and which beginning and ending early, and being devoted to 

• * An heiress by no means makes the same sensation, in France, as amongst 
us ; because it is generally understood that suitable arrangements have been 
made for her establishment, before she appears in public. 



112 SOCIETY. 

their graceful and elegant dances, are infinitely more calculated 
for youthful recreation, than the late hours and unwholesome 
crowds of London assemblies, where youth so soon loses its 
spirit and its bloom, and where the often exhibited beauty glows 
stale on the sickly eye of fashion, before it has accomplished 
the end of its annual and nightly exhibitions.* 

Marriages are still pretty generally arranged by the pru- 
dence and foresight of les bons parens; [the good parents ;] but 
daughters are no longer shut up in convents, till the day of 
their nuptials; nor are they condemned to behold for the first 
time their husband and their lover, almost at the same moment. 
Educated chiefly at home, they mingle with the customary 
guests of the maternal circle, from which the companion of their 
future life is not unfrequently chosen ; and since inclination is 
never violated, nor repugnance resisted, it must often happen 
among the young, the pleasing, and the susceptible, that duty 
and preference may go together, and obedience know that *« il 
est doux de trouver, dans un amant qu'on aime 9 un epoux que Von 
doit aimer," [« it is sweet to find in a lover that we love, a hus- 
band that we ought to love."] To this may be added, that a 
young French woman, like a young English woman, may for- 
ward parental ambition, by her own aspiring views, and <* don- 
ner dans la seignearie" [« look up to rank and fortune,"] with a 
ready recantation of the romantic drama of « love in a cot- 
tage," which in the end frequently turns out to be a cottage, 
without love. 

The French youth of both sexes, of the present generation, 
are peculiarly distinguished by all the genuine and delightful 
characteristics of that most delightful period of human exist- 
ence. Spirited, energetic, frank, and communicative, they 
have found the order of things, under which they have been 
brought up, peculiarly favourable to their moral development. 
The military and the scientific education of the young men have 
acted mutually and favourably upon each other; adding to 
force and activity, a just appreciation of scientific knowledge, 
and destroying that false estimate of useless and frivolous ac- 
quirements, which made the merit and the charm of the abbes 
and petit-maitrcs of the old regime. None of these fluttering in- 
sects now appear, hovering round the toilette, and swarming at 
the levees of beauty; lisping their critiques on patches and poe- 
try, deciding with importance on a tragedy or a cosmetic, and 
claiming it as an equal distinction, to judge the merits of an epi- 

* Very young" girls do not, in general, frequent soirees, or mere conversation- 
al societies, because they do not themselves desire it. To balls and to concerts 
they go at a much earlier age, thau is usual in England ; and there is no decided 
period for " coming oxit" No unmarried woman, of any age, can go to court. 



SOCIETY. H£ 

gram, or pronounce on the flounce of a petticoat. Of these 
« unfinished things" not a trace remains; and I have seen the 
sudden appearance of a London " dandy" make as great a sen- 
sation in a French assembly) by its novelty and incomprehen- 
sibility, as when the ornithosynchus paradoxus came to confound 
the systems, and dislocate the arrangements of the naturalists, 
at the jardin des plantes, [garden of plants.] 

I was one evening in the apartment of the Princesse de Vol- 
konski (a Russian lady,) awaiting the commencement of one of 
her pretty Italian operas, when one of these « fashion-monger- 
ing boys,'' as Beatrice calls them, newly arrived in Paris, ap- 
peared at the door^>f the saloon, flushed with the conscious pride 
of the toilette, and reconnoitring the company through his glass. 
I had the honour to be recognized by him ; he approached, and 
half yawned, half articulated some enquiries, which he did not 
wait to be answered, but drawled on to somebody else, whom 
he distinguished with his notice. A very pleasant little French 
woman, the daughter of the Comte de L-s-ge, was talking to 
me, when my English mcrveilleux [wonder] joined us. Mad. 

de Y stared at him with unsated curiosity and evident 

amusement; and when he had passed on asked, « mais qu'est- 
ce que cela vent dire?" [« But what is all this?"] I answered, 
" C'est un dandi !? 9 [" It is a dandy !"] 

« Un dandi J" ["Adandy"] she repeated, " un dandi ! c'est 
done un genre parmi vous, qu\m dandi F* .[« a dandy ! it is then 
a species among you, a dandy ?"] 

I replied, « no ; rather a variety in the species, 9 '' I endea- 
voured to describe a dandy to her, as well as it would bear defi- 
nition : asking her, whether there was no pendant [parallel] for 
it in French society ? " Mais 9 mon Dieu, out; 99 [" Oh yes,"] she 
replied ; «* nosjeune's duchesses sont dpeu-pres des dandis,"* [our 
young duchesses are almost all dandies." 

A few days after this exhibition of dandyism, I met with an- 
other of the tribe in the hotel of the Baron Denon. He was a 
young diplomatist, and added the weight of official solemnity to 
the usual foppery of a merveilleux. Associating only with his 
own spy-glass, lie passed with languid indifference from one ob- 
ject to another, in the splendid collection he had been brought 
to see ; but without once noticing, by word or look, the eminent 

* I was told that many of the young duchesses, who now claim the supreme 
privilege of the " divine tabouret, et qui se traduissent en ridicide, raalgre tear 
qualite," [" the divine tabouret, and who make themselves ridiculous in spite of 
their rank,"] assume an air of superiority over the less privileged classes, which 

I suppose induced a French gentleman to observe to me, as the Duchess de 

passed by us: '« De toutes nos jeunes duchesses, voila la plus insolent?" [*' Of a ])_ 
our young duchesses, there is the most insolent."] 



|J[4 SOCIETY. 

and celebrated person, who was so much more worthy of atten- 
tion, than even the treasures he possessed. M. Denon, to© 
much amused to be hurt by this want of good manners in his 
guest, followed him, with a look of pleased attention. I could 
almost trace in his eye a desire to place this modern curiosity 
among his Chinese josses, and bamboo pagodas. When this 
rare specimen of " quaint fashions of the times" took his leave, 
Mons. D exclaimed with a smile, and a shrug of the shoul- 
ders : « Quel drdle de corps qiCun dandiJ" [<* What a queer fel- 
low is a dandy !"] 1 was surprised to find that the Egyptian 
traveller had so far extended his study of the human character, 
as to discover at once an English dandy, by its generic charac- 
ter. 

By those accustomed to the systematic politeness and cere- 
monious courtesy of the old regime, the military youth of France 
are accused of a brusqueric, [roughness] a certain force and 
bluntness of manner, foreign to the national urbanity. It is 
most certain that « les graces [the graces] do not now receive 
that homage, which the "pctits marquis, a talons rouges," ["the 
little marquises with red heels,"] offered on their altars in 
former times. Boys are no longer studied in the " sad ostent" 
of idle compliment. Few petits-bons-hommes of eight years old 
would address their handsome mother, like the little Due de 
Mairfe, and exclaim, "vous etes belle comme un ange!" ["you 
are as beautiful as an angel !"] The eleves of the polytechnic 
schools, and of the Lycees, have more of the careless boldness, 
which distinguishes the manly pupils of Westminster and Har- 
row, than the (i petits soins" and "jolies tournures," ["little at- 
tentions and pretty manners,"] with which the little Richelieus 
won hearts and ruined reputations, at fifteen. And though 
these young, and generally ardent votaries of science possess 
less erudition, and are less grounded in classical lore, than the 
profound scholars of Cambridge, or the elegant students of 
Oxford, they are still far more extensively acquainted with 
every branch of useful knowledge, with history, science, and 
philosophy, than the best of their predecessors, under the an- 
cient regime. If fewer Arnauds, Daciers, and La Mottes are 
to be expected from the rising generation, the schools of science 
promise abundance of worthy* successors to the D'Alcmberts, 
the Diderots, the Cabanis, the Bichats, the La Places, the Ber- 
tholets, and the Cuviers. 

The belles-lettres of their national literature seem to come to 

* There is no circumstance, in the appearance of the National Institute, more 
striking* and more interesting, than ihc v;ist proportion of young' men, who 
have forced themselves, by superior talent, within its walls. 



SOCIETY. US 

the French youth, as reading and writing did to Touchstone, by 
nature. Persons of all classes quote the popular authors of the 
last hundred years, as if they had imbibed their effusions with 
their first nourishment, and no one is ashamed to write like a 
man of letters ; nor, however high his rank, confines himself to 
the " style (Van homme de qualite"* [" style of a man of qua- 
lity."] 

The law of conscription, and still more the personal influence 
which Napoleon excited aver the higher ranks, by inducing or 
by forcing their sons, at an early age, into the army, much in- 
terrupted the course of education, and checked the progress of 
elegant acquirement. But in all ages, and under all reigns, 
the army was the hereditary profession of the young French 
nobility ; and the elder sons were as invariably guidons [en- 
signs] and colonels, as the cadets [younger ones] were prelates 
and aobes. I can, however, on my own experience attest the 
ardour with which the young men of the highest rank, civil 
and military, return to their studies, from which they had been 
forcibly estranged. I have known the young heirs to the most 
distinguished names in modern celebrity, to the most illustrious 
titles in historic record, not less regular and assiduous attend- 
ants on the daily lectures of Cuvier, St. Fond, Fourcroy, Haiiy, 
than those who have to subsist by the exercise of their acquired 
talents. 

It is this attention to scientific and philosophical research, 
which occupies so generally the mornings of young French- 
men, and throws an imputation on the capital, that there are 
few gentleman-like persons to be seen in the streets. It is quite 
true that the young men in their black stocks and shabby 
hats, hurrying from lecture to lecture,f hastening to catch the 
hours of one public library, or to overtake those of another, 
whether on foot, in their «• Bogeys Anglaises" ["English Bug- 
gies,"] or in their own ill-appointed cabriolets, are by no means 
so ornamental to a great city, as those ** neat and trimly 
dressed' 1 votaries of English fashion, who, for the benefit of the 
public, and their own gratification, parade their persons and 
their ennui, at stated [fours, in stated places; who preside, over 
the folds of a neckcloth, or dictate the varnish which should 

* A phrase much in fashion, before the revolution, was "e'erire en homme dc 
tpiaUte," [" to write like a man of quality.] " Cest dommage que la revolu- 
tion tavisse la source de tons ces bona ridicules" ["It is a pity that the revolution 
dries up the source of all these good ridiculous phrases,"] says a modern 
satirist. 

f The number of public institutions, established and supported by govern- 
ment for national education, all well attended, are a sufficient proof of the uni- 
versal diffusion of knowledge, and of the general application to study of the 
rising generation. 



Hf3 SOCIETY. 

illustrate a boot. Street exhibition is, indeed, wholly un- 
known in Paris; and no man, young or old, founds his cele- 
brity on rivalling his own coachman, or upon the superior ex- 
cellence and appointment of his turn-out The extreme on the 
other side of the question amounts, indeed, too frequently to the 
ludicrous; and the point of preference must be left to the um- 
pire of those, who are interested in, and adequate to the dis- 
cussion. 

The settlement of the French government, under the impe- 
rial reign, produced that public calm, which is favourable to 
the return of the long-scattered lights of science and learning; 
and public instruction was re-assumed with a vigour and uni- 
versality, almost unprecedented in any other country. The 
regime of the Lycees comprehended the study of literature, an- 
cient and modern, the mathematical and physical sciences, as 
they apply to general life and to professions. To these branches 
were added the modern languages ; and six years was the time 
fixed for the studies of the pupil.* 

The polytechnic school, devoted to the mathematical, physi- 
cal, and chemical sciences, and to the graphic arts, was des- 
tined to form and educate pupils for the service of the nation. f 
How well, and how willingly the young eleves [pupils] fulfilled 
the intentions of the legislature, in its foundation, was evinced 
during the struggle which -France made against the arms of 
Europe, in 1815; when this little band of boyish heroes de- 
fended the heights of Mont-Marte, with an energy of spirit, a 
desperation of courage, and a display of skill, which would 
have consecrated any cause; and which recalled the youthful 
bands of Sparta, fighting in honourable and dear alliance for 
glory and for death. ± 

I have at this moment before my eyes one of these « veteran 
youths," as I once beheld him, describing the evacuation of 
Paris by the French troops; and never did the mind create a 
finer vision of self-devoted patriotism, with all tiic harmonizing 

* The number of ecoles, prytane'es, lycees, 4coles epiciales, [schools, prytane- 
ums, lvceums, special schools,] colleges, academies, and institutes, which 
succeeded to the ten colleges, " deplane exercise," where the French and La- 
tin languages were taught, with theology, law, medicine, and the arts, are 
countless. Theology alone is a sufferer, by the abolition, of the ancient semi- 
naries. 

j- Napoleon latterly excited the jealousy of the pupils of the polytechnic 
school, by the exclusive attention he paid to the military school at St. Cyr. 

\ Suddenly called from their classes into service, with oily the benefit of a 
few weeks' exercise and discipline, to prepare them for the arduous conflict, 
they were appointed to serve the artillery, destined to cover the approach to 
their positions; and they strewed the spot with the bodies of the enemy, de- 
fending their post till the barriers could no longer be protected. Great num- 
bers of them were found dead upon the guns they had so gallantly worked. 



SOCIETY. Ify 

attributes of spirit, grace, eloquence, and passion. He spoke 
of the emperor, merely as a great captain, worthy of the de- 
votion of his soldiers, by his personal bravery and military 
genius. — « But," added he, « it was not for him we fought — it 
was for the fast-eclipsing glory of France that we struggled ; 
and even, when all seemed lost, to others, hope still remained 
to us I The troops, afflicted, but not discouraged, even when 
the barriers of Paris were forced, were still eager to rally, to 
save the country, or to die upon the bayonets of the enemy. — . 
But shameful degradation, not glorious death, awaited them : 
they were hunted out of Paris, and ordered, by the command of 
foreigners, to retire to the lonely destination of their ignoble 
retreat. Oh.! then, what passions agitated the breasts of the 
brave, when the death they supplicated was denied them \" 

He paused, and added, in a hurried tone, « The march of 
the troops, through the streets of Paris, was characterized by 
all the fiercest wildness of despair, and was witnessed by its 
weeping population with sympathetic emotion. The men flung 
down their arms, and refused to obey their officers; they tore 
their hair, they rent their garments — courage unsubdued, spi- 
rits unbroken, indignation unrestrained, shame unconcealed, 
all mingled, all betrayed their symptoms in their distracted 
movements ; and their cries became howls, when, for the last 
time, they were drawn beyond the barriers of that proud city, 
which their arms and blood had nearly made the mistress of the 
world !" 

" You witnessed, then, the scene V I asked, affected by the 
emotions of the young narrator. 

<* Sije Vai vu.'" [« Have I seen it !"] he exclaimed, his eyes 
flashing fire through the tears that gushed from them. « Ma- 
dame, je suis moi-meme un brigand de la Loire !" [« Madam, I 
am myself a brigand of the Loire."] 

He had, in fact, only returned to his family a few weeks be- 
fore. Should the high-minded Mad. de B — s — re find in this 
slight sketch a resemblance to her gallant son, she will judge 
of the impression made on my mind by the character, spirit, 
and eloquence of the original. 

But, while monasteries and convents now rise on every side; 
while TJrsulines and Carmelites again revive and multiply by 
royal ordinance, and by princely encouragement, the Polytech- 
nic School is no more. Nor could the bravery, spirit, and de- 
votion of its pupils save it from that degradation, with which 
all institutions, marked by the energy and character of the age, 
are overwhelmed in the new order of administration. 

Even the course of female education, so obviously improved 
within the last thirty years, has received a new direction, and 



£1§ SOCIETY. 

assumes the characer of the rules and ordinances of the con- 
vent of St. Cyr. The accomplished women,* formerly at the 
head of the national seminaries, for the education of female 
youth, are now either displaced, to make way for pious ab- 
besses, or obliged to adopt vows and rules, perfectly mo- 
nastic. 

The maison (V education [house of education] at Ecouen, 
where three hundred daughters of military men, and public 
functionaries were educated, has recently undergone a change 
that amounts to its dissolution; and during the time that I was 
at Paris, a pitched battle was said to have taken place, between 
the few of its original pupils, who still remained, and the host 
of young royalist and emigrant ladies, who have recently filled 
up its ranks. I was assured that their missile contest rivalled, 
in force and energy, the celebrated conclave battle, when car- 
dinals laid aside arguments for blows, and ink-horns flew where 
hypothesis had resounded. 

Talking over this curious circumstance to an old royalist 
lady, who had two daughters at Ecouen, she exclaimed, « Pour 
ccs jeunes JBuonapartisies, ce sont des petiies viperes a etouffer /" 
["These young Buonapartists are little vipers that must be 
strangled !"] The same lady assured me, that having placed 
her son in a military school immediately after the king's ar- 
rival in 1814, the conflict of political principles ran so high, 
between the royalist and Buonapartist boys, that she was ob- 
liged to withdraw her son, in terror for his limbs or his 
life. 

The change in the female seminaries of education, are said 
to be affected by the pious zeal and active interference of Mad. 
La Duchesse d'Augouleme, who personally interests herself in 
the nomination of both pupils and directresses. Other Ma- 
dame de Glapionsf arc now sought for, zealous and severe as 
the charming actress of Jlordecai, to restore rules, which she 

*I believe the former directress en chef [in chief] of the school of the Le- 
gion of Honour, was Mad. de Campau, widow of the celebrated Geo. Campau. 

f Mad. de Glaplon, superior of St. Cyr, seems to have owed her distinction 
and elevation to her performance ofMordecai, the .Tew, in one of the pious tra- 
gedies acted by the young- novices of that institution, for the amusement of 
the king and the court. 

There was a malicious report, when I was at Paris, among- the anti-royalists, 
that Monsieur Chateaubriand's M. S. tragedy of " Moses" which has been so 
often read in private society, is to be got i/f> by the young ladies of Ecouen, by 
permission of Madame, in imitation of the Esther and At Italic of Racine. **Des 
voix pures et virgin ales" ["Pure and virgin voices,"] as Mad. du Stand calls 
the singers of St. Cyr, are to chaunt the choruses of Moses, which are said to 
resemble, in fijjurative ardour, the Songs of Solomon; and the saintly, though 
laical, author himself 'is to perform the part of Moses, and to lead his fair tribe to 
the land of promise. 



SOCIETY. 149 

alone could preserve among the rather restive young ladies of 
St. Cyr, whose wanderings and extasies on divine love* forced 
the illustrious foundress to declare, « J'aimerois mieux avoir a 
gouverner un empire" [" I would rather govern an empire."] 

This union of tent-stitch and faith, of dogmas and doctrines, 
with nouns and pronouns, excites, on the part of the ultras, 
boundless admiration for the royal personage, who revives a 
mode of education long exploded, and which had certainly no 
influence on female morals, as the conduct of the Chateauroux 
and de Pries, and the Mancinis evince. But upon all occasions 
the ultras merit the eulogium, applied to them by the deputy of 
Rouen, « Messieurs, je vous trouve toujours plus royal que le Roi 9 
et plus religieux que le Pape" [" Gentlemen, I find you more 
royal than the king, and more religious than the pope."] 

* The divine love of Mad. Guyon had such an effect on the young ladies of 
St. Cyr, and her K court moyear [" brief method"] exerted so powerful an in- 
fluence, that, says their elegant historian, on etoit en contemplation, on avait des 
extases ; le gout pour Voruison devenoit si pirissant, que tons les devoirs etoienf 
negliges .'" ["they had contemplation, they had extasies; the taste for prayer 
became so powerful, that all other duties were neglected '"] 

The result then of tins over-strained piety and religious observance, seems 
only to have been the neglecting of imperious duties, and the substitution of 
m for practical virtues. 



FRANCE. 



BOOK III. 

Society. 



" There ought to be a system of manners in every nation, which a well* 
formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our 
country ought to be lovely." Bcrke. 



Woman, — Her former Influence, and actual Position in French So- 
ciety. — National Characteristics.— Madame D'Houdetot. — Mar- 
ried Life. — Gallantry, Manners, Education. — Domestic Habits. 
— The Femme de Chanibre. — La Bonne. — Domestic Servitude.-* 
The Teilet. — The Royal Trousseau. 

IN all considerations of society, whether political or moral, 
the mind habitually directs its views to those relations, which 
spring from the intellectual and physical forces of man alone. 
But there is a light and ornamental capital, crowning the mas- 
sive columns of the social ediiice, upon which, when the mind 
has estimated the depth of the foundation, and the strength of 
the base, it rests with pleasure and recreation. Fragile and de- 
licate, full of grace, and replete with harmony, this last work 
of the almighty architect seems to typify the benevolent inten- 
tions, which originated awl planned the whole structure of crea- 
tion. 

Women, in all regions, and under all institutions, as wife* and 
as mother, exercises, through the delightful medium of these sa- 
cred ties, a direct or an indirect influence on the constitution of 
society. And it is a curious paradox that in the country, where 
she has reigned with the most unlimited controul, she has been 
denied all chartered jurisdiction in its political government. There 
seems, however, to have been at all times a conventional agree- 
ment, in French societv, to counteract the severe proscription of 



122 - SOCIETY. 

those Sa]ie laws, which certainly were not established on the pre- 
sumption of female inability to reign;* since, uu der the title of 
jregent, women have governed the helm with all the despotism 
of the most absolute monarchy, and occasionally with a tyranny, 
which has been justly charged* against them as a reproach, by the 
satirists of France and of other countries. 

Women have never been called to the throne of elective mon- 
archies, nor have taken any share in republican governments. 
Their genius, tact, and address suit best with the jinesse, which 
rules the cabinets of hereditary and decspotic monarchies. The 
fair Gabrielles and the Entragnes had no power in the court of 
Henry IV. when opposed in his mind to the wisdom of his minis- 
ter Sully, whose government almost approached to the vigour of 
republican rule. They had a very different influence upon the 
affairs of their royal lover, from that exercised in the courts of 
Louis XIV. and XV. when the women created marshals, displac- 
ed ministers, intrigued with foreign cabinets, and corresponded 
with imperial sovereignty.! 

It was in these two reigns most especially, that love and poli- 
tics went hand in hand, and the reins of government, became 
entangled 'with the flowery bands of pleasure. 

* This is the ungallant supposition of Mezeray Cardinal Mazarin declar- 
ed that the Salic law was established, because it was always to be dreaded 
that a queen would be ruled, "par des amants incapables gouverner douu 
poules!" [by lovers incapable of governing a dozen hens.] 

f It is pleasant to consider how much the affairs of Europe must have 
been influenced, by the intrigues of Madame de Pompadour. Her resent- 
ment against the Due de Richelieu, for refusing to marry his son to her 
daughter, had nearly proved fatal to France. " Ses tracasseries penserent, com- 
me on verra, faire e'ehoutr V enterprise sur JMinorque, &c." [We shall see that 
her tricks will cause the failure of the enterprise against Minorca] Such 
was her conscious power, that she offered to make Voltaire a cardinal, on 
condition of\his writing a new version of the Psalms. Her correspondence 
with Marie Therese, and the homage offered her by that empress, are too 
will known to need comment. 

It is curious to observe the coolness with which even philosophy, in those 
days, considered the influence of a royal mistress. Voltaire was among the 
flatterers of Mad. de Pompadour; and Roussenu, speaking of the minister de 
Choiseul, observes: " II gagnoit dans ?non esprit an peu de eas que je faisois de 
ses pride'cesseiirs, sans excepter Mad. de Pompadour, que je regardois comme une 
faeon de premier ministre. Et quand le bruit courut que, d'elle ou de lui, Vun des 
deux expulseroit V autre, je cms faire des'veeux pour la gloire de la France, en 
en faisant pour que M. de Choiseul triomphat." [He rose in my opinion by com- 
parison with his predecessors, not excepting Madame de Pompadour, whom 
I always considered as a sort of prime minister. And when it was reported 
that either he or siie, one would turn out the other, I believed it for the glory 
of France that M. de Choiseul should triumph.] Mad. de Pompadour has left 
behind her, in France, the character of an ignorant, shallow-minded, and vin- 
die-K- 



rv 133 

During the progress of the revolution, woman gradually be- 
came circumscribed within her own proper sphere; and when 
strength succeeded to feebleness, and force to intrigue, the deli- 
cacy of female perception, and the refinement of female agency, 
were no longer in demand. Another and a better scene was open- 
ed to woman's activity. Devoted to and for those, who had claims 
upon her feelings and her exertions, she confined her sovereignty 
to a more domestic existence. It would almost appear that this 
great event occurred for the purpose of demonstrating to what no- 
ble extremes of heroism female nature was capable of attaining.* 
The splendid portraits of self-immolation in the cause of the best 
feelings and affections of humanity, which many of the illustri- 
ous victims of the reign of terror left behind them, have shed a 
glory upon the sex, whose disinterested virtues and high capabili- 
ties they have so signally illustrated. 

No longer dazzled and debased by the splendor of a corrupt 
court, so long the fatal cynosure of their sex, the women of France 
learned to love their country, for whose service they now, for the 
first time, nurtured a future, citizen at their maternal bosoms. 
" VoiU deux fits quej'ui eleves* pour servir leur roi" [There are 
two sons, that I have brought up to serve their king.] said an old 
royalist lady to me, as she read a letter from her son, on his march 
to quarters. "And I," said the mother of the gallant genera] — 
"./'a? consacre mon unique fils an service de sa patrie." [I have 
consecrated my only child to the service of his country.] 

In despotic governments all undue influence is exercised and 

* The courageous attachment and in defati gable perseverance, which the 
women exhibited, during- the reign of terror, was magnanimous. In the first 
instance, more than two thousand women of condition presented themselves 
before the convention, to petition for the proscribed, to whom they had given 
shelter and protection, at the greatest risk; and in many instances, when they 
could no longer save or protect, they shared captivity, and even death, with. 
the objects of their pity or their affections. Antigone and the Grecian daugh- 
ter afford not examples of filial affection, more heroical, than were evinced 
in the persevering endurance of -Mademoiselle Cazotte, the lovely daughter 
of the charming author of " Le diable amoureux ,•" by Mad. de Paysac, and 
Mad. de ***, the one sacrificing, the other risking, her life for their illus- 
trious friends, Rabaud St. Ktienne, and Condorcet; by the more than heroic, 
the almost superhuman de Sombreuil, and by the young and incomparable 
Mademoiselle de la Rochefoucauld, who saved the life of her aged father in 
the Vendean wars, by a courage and ingenuity which woman alone knows 
how to unite. To these may be added the martyr-names of Maille, de Bussy, 
de Mouchy, Roland, and last, not least, the heroic Elizabeth of France, who 
died the victim of sisterly affection. She might have saved herself with In r 
brothers, who fled from France, had she not preferred death, with her un- 
fortunate relations, who remained. — It is curious to remark, that a Mad. La 
Valette distinguished herself by her resolute determination :o die with her 
husband, during the reign of terror. 



££4i SOCIETY. 

admissible; and the influence of women being, to a certain extent, 
always undue, her powers are particularly called forth in a state, 
where the will of the sovereign is the law; anil where by his very 
position he is thrown, for resource against his own ennui, upon 
female conversation, and allurement. It is thus that mistresses 
purchase the privilege of political interference, by the labour m 
amusing some royal satrap, "qui n 9 est plus (unusable; 99 [who is 
not amusable;] and it was thus that for thirty years de Mainlenon 
occupied the idleness of the king, and influenced the decisions of 
his cabinet, when she had no longer beauty to charm, nor he sus- 
ceptibility to be attracted. 

This avenue to female ambition has long been closed, in France. 
No lady now brings her distaff into the council-chamber, nor can 
hope to be complimented by some obsequious controleur -general 
[comptroller general] with : "Eh, quoi, madame, le grand Colbert 
vows a done transmis son dme. ,99 % [What, madam, has the great 
Colbert transmitted to you his. soul,!] But although the executive 
power of the sex, is confined to the sway of their domestic regi- 
mes, the philosophy of legislation is by no means denied to their 
investigation. The reigning politics of the agitated day, during 
which I resided in France, were discussed even by young women, 
with considerable force and precision; while the men listened 
with indulgence, if not with deference. Feebleness and intrigue 

* This speech of Dodun, contruleur ginSral, during the regency, was made 
to Mad. de Prie, who had got up a speech on some state question, under the 
tuition of the crafty Duverney. This woman, who is described by cotemporary 
writers, as "femme perdue, intriguante, spiritneile et libertine," [a desperate wo- 
man, intriguing', witty, and unprincipled,] governed for some time both 
France and the regent ; and was herself governed by the four intriguing 
brothers of the name of Paris. She was the cause that the family of her royal 
lover did not give a queen to France. Offended by the coldness, with which 
Mad. de Vermandois received her, she left her in a rage, exclaiming: " Va; 
tu ne seras jamais reine de France:" [Go; you shall never be queen of France:] 
and she fulfilled her prediction, by preventing the marriage of Louis XV. 
with one of the most illustrious, amiable, and lovely women of Europe. Mad. 
la Marquise de Prie gave away, or sold, places of the highest importance. 
The indolence of the regent, and his devotion to every species of pleasure, 
and of dissipation, left a boundless scope to abuse; and the same observation 
might be applied to him, as cardinal du Bois made of Louis XV. when the 
deputies from the parliament of Paris came with a remonstrance to Versail- 
les. The cardinal on thi.- occasion dismissed them, saying: " On ne park ja- 
mais d'affaires au roi" [We never speak of the king's affairs.] This Mad. de 
Prie once threw int? the fire the remonstrances of the parliaments of Rennes 
and of Thoulouse, observing gaily, that they were of a " niauvais ton," and 
" sentoicnt la province///" [that they were vulgar, and smelt of the country/'] 
When she read some songs made against her conduct and character, she ob- 
served: " Voila ce que sont les Francois, quand Us sont trop bien." [See how the 
French go on, when they are too well treated.] Such are the good old times, 
\yhich the modern loyalty of England and France seek to have restored! 



seem wholly to have yielded to open and free discussion; roman- 
ces are laid aside tor "exposes;" the prettiest women in Paris 
run through all the intricacies oi finance, with the accuracy of 
a chancellor of the exchequer ; and "lips, which not by words 
pleased only, 9 ' became eloquent in the discussion of "le Buget." 
[the budget.] 

"Nous void, ma chere" said Mad. de R — Ize, as I entered 
one evening her salon. "Nous void tons, plus enfongees dans les 
horreurs de la politique, que la chambre des communes et tout le 
parlement d'Jlngleterre ne pourroient Vetre" [Here we are my 

dear .Here we are, more deeply immersed in the horrors of 

politics than the house of commons and the whole British parlia- 
ment can be.] And she went on with an argument on w,ays and 
means, which our arrival had for a moment interrupted. Even 
politics, however, become amusing, when discussed by a well 
educated and elegant French woman; and I have heard English- 
men of considerable talent and judgment declare, that the accu- 
racy, and precision of many fair politicians with whom they had 
conversed, even on abstract points of government, went far be- 
yond the level assigned to the mental powers of their sex. 

It is this wide sphere of discussion, unrestricted by ridicule and 
unlimited by fashion, which gives the play to their imagination, 
the force to their intellect, and that charm of facility, elegance, 
and effect to their language, which habits of general convention 
can alone confer. It is thus that they are qualified to become the 
companions and friends of men, as well as their mistresses and 
wives. The coarseness of exclusive male society is not sought in 
France, to avoid the insipidity of female circles. Nor is all wit, 
brilliancy, and talent left behind, with the empty decanters after 
dinner, to make room for that "infinitive deal of nothings," 
which with us is presumed to be a necessary qualification for join- 
ing the maudlin priestesses of the tea-table. 

There is perhaps no country in the world, where the social 
position of women is so delectable, as in France. The darling 
child of society, indulged, not spoiled, presiding over its plea- 
sures, preserving its refinements, taking nothing from its 
strength, adding much to its brilliancy, permitted the full exer- 
cise of all her faculties, retaining the full endowment of all her 
graces, she pursues the golden round of her honoured existence, 
limited only in her course by her feebleness and her taste; by her 
want of power and absence of inclination to "overstep the mo- 
desty of nature," or to infringe upon privileges, exclusively the 
attribute of the stronger sex. 

"To paint the character of woman," says Diderot, "you 
must use the feather of a butterfly's wing." He must have meant 



£%Q SOCIETY. 

the character of a French woman, who unites. to more solid qua- 
lities many of the peculiar attributes of that lively insect. Light, 
brilliant, and volatile, she seems to flutter on the surface of life, 
with endless adaptations to its forms; but quick, shrewd, and 
rapid, in her perceptions, she appears to reach by intuition, what 
intellect vainly toils to obtain by inference and combination. 
More susceptible than sensible, more awakened through her ima- 
gination than excited through her heart, love is to her almost a 
jeu d'evfant. [a child's play.] The distrust she inspires in her lov- 
er, acts favourably for her interests on the natural inconstancy of 
man; and she secures the durability of her chain, by the care- 
lessness with which she imposes it. 

Sharing largely in the national deference for ties of blood, she 
is peculiarly adapted to the influence of habitual attachments; and 
in whatever other countries friendship may raise her altars; it is 
in France, and by French women, perhaps, that she will find 
them best served. I saw, during my resilience in that country, 
so many instances of this pure and ennobling principle, that for 
the first time I comprehend the preference of Rousseau for a 
people, among whom the Epinays and the Luzembourgs afford- 
ed in his own instance so many illustrations of his hypothesis; 
and where the friends he found compensated him for the mistress 
and the wife, "qu'il n'auroit jamais pris en France.' 9 [whom he 
woultl^ever have taken in France.] 

It is no uncommon tiling in that country, to see the most last- 
ing attachment succeed to the most lively passion; and all that 
was faulty, in unlicensed love, become all that is respectable, in 
disinterested friendship. There is nothing more common in 
France, than to behold long-attached friends parting off from the 
more prosperous lists of society, to unite their forces against the 
attacks of adversity, and who suffer with resignation, because 
they suffer together. These friendships, equally common between 
individuals of different and of the same sexes, are tacit eulogi- 
ums on the marriage state in its best aspect, and indicate the ne- 
cessity of a sympathy of interests and feelings, with some being 
willing to blend its existence and identity with our own; even 
when passion no longer animates, nor love cements the tie of the 
communion. 

I have at this moment present in my recollection many friends, 
whom I saw dwelling together in perfect confidence and intimate 
union; providing for each other's wants, indulgent to each other's 
infirmities, giving mutual accommodation to each other's weak- 
nesses, and hand-in-hand stealing down the evening path of life, 
bereft of all the conflicting passions, which agitated its morning, 
and retaining enough only of the heart's vital heat, to warm the 



SOCIETY. | tyj 

chill atmosphere of age and debility. Oh ! these are the mild lights 
which gleam along the broken surface of society; when the me- 
teor blaze of youth and pleasure are extinguished for ever, by na- 
ture or by time. 

This determination of the affections towards friendship, so ob- 
servable among the French of all classes, and most particularly 
among the women, seems the inherent tendency of the nation, and 
is by no means, revolutionary virtue. When le bonne homme, [the 
good man,] la Fontaine, lost his inestimable and faithful friend and 
protectress, Mad. de la Sabliere, in whose hotel he lived, Mad. 
de Hervart immediately presented herself to the afflicted poet; 
and abruptly entering his room, she said: "J'ai avpris le maU 
heur qui vous est arrive: je viens vous proposer de loger chez moi," 
[I have just learnt the misfortune which has happened to you; I 
come to propose to you to lodge with me.] 

i6 J 9 y allots" [I will go,] was the simple and affecting reply.* 

* However suited the character and manners of the French women may 
be to friendship, they by no means engross a virtue, which is to a great de- 
gree national. While I was at Paris, Voltaire's walking cane was sold for five 
hundred francs, and purchased by the celebrated surgeon du Bois. His joy 
at obtaining this relic was excessive. A gentleman present observed that he 
had paid too dear for his purchase. " Comment" he replied with vivacity, 
"quand c'est pour I' ami Corvisart?" [How — when it is for my friend Corvisart r] 
The well-known friendship of these distinguished men, is equally honorable 
to both parties. Monsieur Corvisart is justly celebrated for his work " on the 
heart," both on the continent and in England. 

A young and deVoted friend of the brave Caffarelli, saw that celebrated 
man fall at St. Jean d\icre, while fighting by his side. The death of his gal- 
lant friend drove him to despair; and his grief was so touching, his despon- 
dency so profound, that it became a subject of conversation to the whole ar- 
my. It at last reached the ears of Buonaparte, who paid a personal visit to 
the mourner. He is said to have shed tears on the occasion, and endeavoured 
in vain to console him, by observing: "It is at least a solace to you, that 
your brave friend died covered with glory." 

" La glone .'" repeated the young man indignantly, and in all the petulance 
of grief; " qxCest-ce que la gloire? Eile est faite pour un homme tel que vous." 
[Glory! what is glory? It is made for men like you.] " Give him some lauda- 
num," said Buonaparte coldlv ; and when he had seen it administered, silently 
left the tent. A few days after this interview, the young man distinguished 
himself by a desperate intrepidity, which evinced his desire to follow his 
friend, " de mourir, de la mort Roland." [to die the death of Roland] His va- 
lor became a subject of admiration in common with his friendship, and the 
army were unwearied in their praises of his spirit and his sensibility. Buona- 
parte became tired of the subject, and fearful of the example; and observed 
in the hearing of several of his young companions: "Pour ce jeune * * * *, 
e'estun brave garcon, mois je I'aurois fusiUe', si cela e(ct continue." [That young 
* * * *, is a brave fellow, but I should have had him shot if this had conti- 
nued.] This anecdote, which was given me as a fact affords a. pendant [paral- 
lel] for the story of the King of Prussia's ordering an officer to be shot, 
who on the eve of a battle had kept a light in his tent after the prohibited 
ho'ir, For the purpose of writing to his wife, — Buonaparte's friendship for 



18S SjQCLETY. 

It must certainly have been in some fit of cynicism, that Mon- 
taigne declares the incapability of women for so elevated a sen- 
timent as friendship, to which denunciation he adds, in his own 
quaint way: "La sujjisance ordinaire lies f entities n 9 est pas, your 
respondre a cette conference et communication, nourisse de cette 
saincte cousture; ni leur dme ne semble asse% ferme, pour soustenir 
Pestreinte d'un noeud si presse et si durable." [The ordinary self- 
sufficiency of women makes them incapable of that disinterested- 
ness and unlimited confidence which is necessary to this sacred 
union, and their minds have not sufficient firmness to sustain the 
pressure of a knot so tight and so durable.] The devoted friend- 
ship of his own favourite, "Royne Marguerite de Navarre," for 
the "preux Roi" her brother, is a sufficient refutation of his po- 
sition. 

If a lively solicitude for the interest of those recommended to 
their notice; if acts of kindness may»bc considered as tests of a 
predisposition to friendship, I can answer, on my own experU 
ence, for the qualifications with which the French are endowed, 
for feeling and inspiring that sentiment. I universally observed 
among them an eagerness to oblige, a promptness to serve, a 
readiness to sympathize with the little every -day crosses of 
life of their acquaintance, which proceeding perhaps from quick 
susceptibility for impression, assumes the character of the most 
genuine and perfect good-nature, that ever warmed or cheered 
the common intercourse of society. The charge or insincerity, 
to winch the high polish of refined manners, under the old regime, 
subjected the whole nation, now appears to have so little founda- 
tion, that I am well aware I am not singular in asserting their 
professions to fall short of the unsuspecting confidence, with 
which they come forward to oblige, to serve, and to accommodate 
even strangers, whom chance has presented to their notice. As- 
sociating with them in their circles, in Paris, and occasionally 
a resident in their chateaux in the country, I uniformly found 
their courteous manners accompanied by kindness and attention, 
and by all those little nameless acts of friendship, which showed 
them intent upon contributing to the ease and comfort of their 
guests.* This may be indeed what Sterne calls the »< overflowing 

the gallant general Desaix is said to have been sincere and ardent. When the 
news of his death was brought to him, at the battle of Marengo, he was pro- 
foundly affected, and exclaimed in a tone of great emotion: " Qu> ne puis-je 
pleurerP" [Why can I not weep ?] One of his first acts, on his return to Paris, 
Was to raise a statue to his memory. 

* This kindness and warmth of feeling- did not terminate with our resi- 
dence in France Having- met with a heavy pecuniary loss, during our absence 
from home, the circumstance reached the ears of our French friends; and it 



SOCIETY. 420 

of the pancreatic juices;" but who would stop to explore the 
cause, while benefitting by the effects. 

A French woman, like a child, requires a strong and rapid 
series of sensations, to make her feel the value of existence. Her 
prompt susceptibility changes its emotion with its object; and 
that cheek, which is now dimpled with smiles, but a few moments 
hence, will perhaps be humid with a tear. When it was objected 
that some royalist ladies had attended the trial of those unfortu- 
nate persons, whose hands and heads were severed, for a conspi- 
racy, more worthy the correction of the ♦* petites-maisons" {^mi- 
nor prisons,] than of so barbarous an infiiction, a gentleman un- 
dertook their defence before a very mixed company, where I was 
present, by saying, 

•< Que xoulex-xous? Les Frangaises aiment de pareiHes scenes, 
parce qu 9 il leur faut toujours des battemens de cceur, et comment 
/aire hattre It cc&uv, sans une graiide sensation?" [What w r ould 
you have? The French like such scenes, because they must al- 
ways have agitations of the heart, and how can the heart be par- 
ticularly agitated without a great sensation.] "Monsieur," ob- 
served an old royalist lady, with indignation, "une veritable Fran- 
caise ivanra jamais une grande sensation, que pour son Roi." 
[Sir, a true Frenchman never has a great sensation but for his 
king,] "Qu'ellt delicatesse de penset!" [What delicacy of 
thought!] was the reply. 

The sensibility of the present race of French women, however, 
is by no means exclusively engrossed by the king. Even his ho- 
liness, the pope was said to inspire those battemens de cceur, 
[agitations of the heart,] so necessary to their existence. 

"You will do me the greatest favour," said the beautiful Mad. 
D*****, "if you will put me in the way of being blessed by the 

pope." As it was well understood, that Mad. D. had, as yet, 

no call from « sister-angels" the pious request excited much as- 
tonishment. The petition was however granted ; and as the pope's 

apartment can " ne'er by woman's foot be trod," Mad. D ■ 

crossed him in his garden, and received the wished-for benedic- 
iien. But this was not sufficient: she intreated permission to 
kiss his hand. Monsieur #** struggled against the impropriety 

of this request; but Mad. D- was urgent, and would not be 

denied. " Et la raison de cet empressement?" [But why this ea- 
gerness?] asked Monsieur *** « C'est qut cela me donnera un 
battement de eoeur; et queje suis si heureuse quand le ccsur me batte." 

produced us many letters of inquiry and condolence, backed, by the most 
pressing invitation to return and live amongst them, till «mr losses were re* 

trieved. 3 



£30 SUCIETV. 

[Because it will give me an agitation of the heart: and I am al- 
ways so happy when my heart is unusually agitated,] was her 
candid answer. 

I have known a French lady attend with the most devoted 
care her sick friend, for weeks together; live at her bed-side, 
« explain the asking eye," anticipate every wish, and forego 
every pleasure, to fulfil the duties of friendship; and yet the 
death of this person, wept for a few hours with bitterness and 
vehemence, in a few days left no trace of sadness behind it. 
This happy (though not heroic) facility of character, is purely 
constitutional; and while it operates graciously upon all the ills 
of life; while it quickly absorbs the tear, and dissipates the sigh, 
it neither interferes with the duties, nor chills the affections of 
existence. And though it would make no figure in tragedy or 
romance, it supports resignation, cheers adversity, and enhances 
those transient pleasures, whose flight is scarcely perceived, ere 
their place is supplied. This light volatile tone of character, this 
incapacity for durable impression, this sensibility to good, this 
transient susceptibility to evil, is after all perhaps the secret, 
sought by philosophers. The views of the Epicurean, and of the 
sceptic, well understood, seem to meet at that point, which nature 
has made the basis of the French character; arriving by diffe- 
rent routs to the same conclusion, that true sensibility is to feel, 
but not to be overcome. 

A French woman has no hesitation in acknowledging, that the 
"besoin de sentir" [necessity of feeling] is the first want of her 
existence; that a succession of pursuits is necessary to preserve 
the current of life from that stagnation, which is the death of 
all vivid and gracious emotions. It appears, indeed, to be the pe- 
culiar endowment of the French temperament, to preserve, even 
to the last ebb of life, that unworn sensibility, that vigour, fresh- 
ness, and facility of sensation, which are usually confined to the 
earliest periods of human existence, and which ordinarily lose 
their gloss and energy with the first and earliest impressions. 

I had one day the good fortune to be seated at dinner next to 
the celebrated Humboldt, who. observed, incidentally to the sub- 
ject of conversation, that there was nothing he so much lament- 
ed as having arrived a few weeks too late at Paris, to make the 
acquaintance of Rousseau's Mad. d'Houdetot. " I am told," he 
continued, " that age hold no influence over that charming char- 
acter, and that she preserved, at eighty, the feelings and fancy 
of eighteen."* 

To these observations Mons. Denon, who was present, added, 

* Mad. d'Houdetot died about the time the allies entered Paris. 



SOCIETY. , ,jg£ 

that the last time he hat! seen her (and it was not very long be- 
fore her death), he could even then trace in her manner, her 
voice, her look, and her conversation, all that had bewitched 
Rousseau, and had fixed St. Lambert. 

Mad. d'Houdetot is a splendid epitome of the female charac- 
ter in France, even though her intrinsic excellence is shadowed 
by the manners of the day, in which she lived. To those whom 
she may have interested in the eloquent pages of Rousseau, where 
she appears a being, fanciful and ideal as his own Julie, it may 
not be unpleasing to follow her through her own flower-strowu 
path of real life. Rousseau has sketched in his happiest man- 
ner her first visit to the hermitage of Montmorenci, after being 
overturned near the mill of Clairvaux « Sa mignonne chassure" 
[her pretty little shoes] exchanged for a pair of boots, " pergant 
Voir d f eclats de rire" [filling the air with laughter.] full of health, 
youth, spirits, grace, and gaiety; attacking with all these charms 
the sensibility of the philosopher, and awakening, in that hith- 
erto unawakened heart, " V amour dans toute son energie, dans 
t&utes sesfureurs." [love in all its energy, in all its fury.] 

It is curious to oppose to this picture of playful youth and fro- 
lic and animation, Mad. d'Houdetot, in the same valley of Mont- 
morenci, at a distance of sixty years, seated at her embroidery 
frame, surrounded by her grand-children; approaching the ad- 
vanced age of ninety, and yet retaining all the vital warmth of 
her heart unchilled, all the bloom of her imagination untarnish- 
ed; cultivating the kindest affections, and reciting, as if by in- 
spiration, those charming eifusions of taste and fancy,* which 

* It was by stealth, that the grand -daughters of Mad. d'Houdetot took 
down the poetry which she composed and recited over her embroidery frame. 
She would never suffer them to be published, and I believe this is the first 
time that the two following' little specimens of her talents have appeared in 
print. 

On the departure of St. Lambert for the Army. 

L'amant, que j 'adore, 

Pret a me quitter, 
D'un instant encore 

Voudroit profiler. 
Feiicite vaine! 

Qu'on ne peut saisir, 
Trop pres de la peine, 

Pour etre un pluisir. .g. 

On the last Duchesse de la Valli6re. 

La nature, prudente et sage, 

Force le terns a respecter 
Le charme de ce beau visage, 

Qu'etle n'aurait pu repeter. 



her modesty would not permit her to transcribe; and which she 
composed with the same facility, with which she created the 
flowers that sprung up from under her needle. It was thus that 
she w-as described to me, in those circles, from which she had 
been but recently withdrawn; and where every little word and 
act was still fresh in the memory of friendship. 

When marriage was, in France, a mere affair of convenance, 
Sophie de la Briche, the daughter of a fermier general, was 
forced into a union with the Comte d'Houdetot, an officer of 
rank in the army, described in the traditions of the circles of 
Paris, as a good sort of gentleman, who lived much at court, and 
who had the honour to play « gros jeu" [high play] with Louis 
XV. By Rousseau he is termed a « chicaneur ires peu amiable, 9 ' 
[an unamiable wrangler,] whom his wife could never have loved. 
But the sensible, the susceptible Sophie, was destined to love 
somebody; and she became the-Vival and successor of Voltaire's 
Emilie du Chatelct, by fixing the vagrant affections of the gal- 
lant, the chiva] risque, the poetical St. Lambert.* 

The husband and the lover were called at the same moment 
upon military service; and Sophie, recommended to the solace 
and care of Rousseau, by his friend St. Lambert, retired to her 
chateau in the valley of Montmorenci, in the neighbourhood of 
the hermitage of the philosopher of nature. "Elle vinUje la vis; 99 
says Rousseau. — " J'etois ivre d' amour, sans objet. Cette ivresse 
fascina mes yeux, cet objet seficca sur elle,je vis ma Julie en Mad, 

cPHoudetot; bientot jenevis jilus que Mad. aVJI • mars revihi 

de toutes les perfections, dont je venois d'orner Vidole de moncmur. 
Four m^ackever, elle vie parla de St. Lambert, en amanie passionee. 
Force contagieuse de V amour! en Pecoutant, en me sentant aupres 
cVelle, j^etois saisi d y un fremissement delicieu.v, que je n^avois ja- 
mais eprouvS a-npres de personnel [She came, I saw her — I was in- 
toxicated with love, without an object. This intoxication fasci- 
nated my eyes, the object was fixed, I saw my Julia in Mad. 
d'Houdetot ; soon I saw only Mad. d'Houdetot herself; but ar- 
rayed in all the perfections, with which I had just ornamented 
the idol of my heart. To complete all, she talked of St. Lam- 
bert with passionate fondness. How contagious is love! in listen- 

[Nature, prudent and wise, compelled time to spare the charms of thislovelv 
face, for she could never have made another like it.] 

* " S*il fatit pavdonner quelque chose aux mceurs du siecle" saj's Rousseau, 
" e'ent sans doute tin attacliement, que sa durce 6pure, ses effcts que honorent ; et qui 
ne s'est clmentc, que par une estime reciproque." [If any thing- may he excused 
by the manners of the age, it is undoubtedly an attachment refined by its du- 
ration, honoured by its effects; and which is cemented only by reciprocal es- 
teem ] 



ffiXY. i 33 

ing to her, in feeling myself near her, I was seized with a deli- 
cious tremor which I had never felt near any one else.] 

The defence however made by Rousseau, for a conduct nothing 
short of treachery, is not admitted by those now living, who have 
often heard Mad. d'Houdetot and St. Lambert speak of this sin- 
gular epoch in the life of the philosopher. Rousseau began by 

soothing the regrets of Mad. d'H , and by undermining her 

passion for his friend. He failed in both instances; and then 
sought to alarm her virtue, by painting an unlicensed love in such 
colours, as it was rarely represented to French women of that 
day. If the traditionary anecdotes, from which I have gleaned 
this recital, may be credited, he so far roused her sleeping con- 
science, as nearly to induce her to write a last farewell to the ab- 
sent St. Lambert. But St. Lambert, though almost resigned, was 
always adored; and when Rousseau artfully pleaded his own pas- 
sion, and to counteract his former doctrines, confessed that^ he 
was wrong in subduing a sensibility, that made the felicity of the 
possessor and of all who surrounded her, Mad. d'Houdetot, mis- 
taking his meaning, joyfully exclaimed, "Ah Dieu! que vous me 
rendez la vie! Je vais done fair e le bonheur de mon pauvre St. 
Lambert." [Ah! you bring me back to life! I will then make the 
felicity of my poor St. Lambert.] 

The long absent lover was received with rapture, and the trea- 
cherous friend, maddened by jealousy and apprehension, flew to 
Diderot to expose his griefs, and to demand his assistance. Di- 
derot promised to reconcile all parties; and succeeded in his me- 
diation; and Rousseau, jealous of his influence, swore eternal en- 
mity to the mediator, and breathed it in a citation from the book 
of Ecclesiasticus. in his celebrated letter to d'AIcmbert.f 

The passion of Mad. d'Houdetot and St. Lambert became al- 
most respectable, hy its duration and constancy. But time, which 
told in favour of the mistress, turned all that was gold to dross, 

* It was at this time that lie wrote those passionate letters, of which he 
says : " On a irouroi br&lantes les lettres de la Julie. Ah Dieu, qu 1 auroif-on dit 
de celles-ci?^ [They talk of the burning- letters of Julia. Ah! what would they 

say of these?] When he demanded these letters, Mad. d'H said she 

had burned them. " JVon, non" he replied, " jamais celle qvi pev.t inspirer une 
parielle passion, n'aura le courage cfen bruler les preuves." [No, no, he replied, 
she who could inspire such a passion, would never have courage to burn the 
proofs of it.] A few years back, when Mad. d'Houdetot was asked what she 
had really done with them, she answered with her usual naivete, "I gave them 
all to St. Lambert." 

I The friends of Mad. d'H express great indignation against Rous- 
seau, for his conduct on this occasion. His accusation of Diderot, that he had 
betrayed the secret of his passion to his rival, was utterly without founda- 
tion. Mad. d'H shortly before her death declared, that all what appeared 

passion in J. Jacques was imagination; he had no Jt&arl! 



434 socmr*. 

in the character of the lover. St. Lambert lost the virtues of 
youth, with its graces. In the course of a connexion, which last- 
ed forty years, all that had once heen fanciful, became capricious; 
all that was once wit, soured into satire; philosophy became cy- 
nicism, and vivacity petulance. Severe, and supercilious, St. 
Lambert treated the charming " Doris" of his " Seasons," with 
a peevish acrimony, which still retained in its harshness the ex- 
action of an all-requiring love. If Mad. de Houdetot gave play 
to that brilliant imagination, which accompanied her to her tomb, 
he was sure to observe; "voila qui est Men, cela fait effet" [that 
is very well, that produces effect.] And when watching over his 
fragile health, she Insisted upon more temperance than he was 
willing to endure, he named her "IHntendante de ses priva- 
tions" [the intendant of his privations]. 

What perhaps was most singular in this connexion, so strongly 
marked by the manners of the day, is, that Monsieur d'floude- 
tot was frequently the advocate of a lover, whose tyranny and 
caprice repeatedly procured his temporary dismissal from the 
presence of her, whom his insupportable humour had irritated 
and disgusted. Monsieur d'Houdetot was at last taken to that 
abode of felicity, said to he reserved as a recompence for such 
forbearing husbands, and the death of St. Lambert left this wife 
and mistress doubly widowed. It was then, that feelings of the 
tenderest association led her back to Montmorenci. The lovely 
valley had long changed its inhabitants. The Luzembourgs, the 
Rousseaus, and the d'Epinays, were no more: « Labande noire" 
[The gloomy band] had ravaged the palace of the prince, and 
laid low tiie hermitage of the philosopher. All was altered by 
time and circumstances; but the heart, the imagination of Mad. 
d'Houdetot were still the same. The throb of the one had not 
slackened in its beat, the warmth of the other had lost nothing 
of its glow; and at an age, when even memory fails, in others, 
feeling was still so anient, and fancy so brilliant, in this extra- 
ordinary person, that another St. Lambert was found in the soli- 
tudes of Montmorenci, to engross a friendship, innocent and ten- 
der as the fondness of childhood; and to which she alludes with 
a warmth, borrowed from her imagination, in the following 
lines: 

Jeune, j'aimai; ce terns de mon bel age, 

Ce terns si court, comme un Eclair s'entuit; 
Lotsque arriva la saison d'etre sage, 

Kncorc j'aimai — 1:. raison me le Hit. 
Me voici vielle, et le plaisir s'envole: 

Mais lc bonheur nc me quitte aujourd'lmi; 
Carj'aime encore, et 1'amour me console, 

Rien n**uroit pu me consoler de lui. 



bUUlUTY. 185 

[When I was young I loved; the bright period of youth passed away with the 
rapidity of lightning. — When I attained the period of wisdom, I loved still, 
for reason told me to do so. I am now old, and pleasure has taken its flight; 
but happiness still remains with me, for I still love, and love consoles me. J 

Madame d'lloudetot was eighty, when she produced these 
charming lines; and the object of this new and tender friendship 
was, like St. Lambert, a resident in her dear valley of Montmo- 
renci. The beautiful villa of Monsieur de S*** almost joined the 
chateau of his aged, but attractive mistress. Every morning 
brought him his billet and his nosegay, elegant and fresh, as the 
mind of the donor. When Monsieur de S. was asked, how he was 
affected by inspiring a passion he could not adequately return? 
he replied: "her charming conversation, her notes, and her 
flowers, had become des douces habitudes; [delightfully habitual] 
and the first day that I missed them was certainly not the hap- 
piest of my life.* 

This good-natured sufferance « de se laisser aimer," [letting 
himself be loved] in a man not half the age of his mistress, is, I 
believe, the result of a temperament, formed by kindlier suns, 
and by more genial climes, than preside over the elements of the 
English character: for the brutality of Horace Walpole to the 
enamoured Mad. du Deffand stands severely opposed to the gen- 
tle indulgence of Monsieur de S***. The taint of ridicule hangs, 
perhaps, on the conduct of both ladies; but the distance between 
the frigid egotism of Mad. du Deffand, and the generous affec- 
tions of Mad. de Houdetot, is immeasurable. 

It was the peculiar felicity of the latter to borrow, from the 
store of perennial feeling and exhaustless imagination, materials, 
which formed an ideal world around her, and which replaced 
before her eyes the actual scenes of life. There was a vein of 
genuine unaffected romance, governing the course of her pro- 
tracted existence, which experience did not, and time could not 
subdue.f 

* I had the pleasure of being introduced to Monsieur S***, during my re- 
sidence at Paris. He is an Italian by birth, and was for some time at the head 
of the Cisalpine republic. His splendid fortune is devoted to the arts, of 
which he is a passionate lover, and an elegant judge. The taste and accom- 
plishments of this gentleman merited the esteem and admiration, bestowed 
upon them by Mad. d'Houdetot. 

t The picture of Mad. d'Houdetot's person, by Rousseau, is said to be 
done by a lover's hand ; but it is by no means very attractive. The tout-ensem- 
ble, however including her manner and air, is quite charming. " Mad. de 

H approchoit de la trentaine, et tfe'toit point belle. Son visage itoit marque" 

de la petite virole, son teint manquoit de finesse, elle avoit la vue basse, et les yeux 
ronds; mais elle avait de grands cheveux ?ioirs, naturcllement boucle's, qui lui torn- 
bient anjarret, Sa faille 6toit mitnxonne, et elle metiait dans tons ses nrowmtenta 



£gg SOCIETY. 

It is a singular circumstance, that this rival of the beautiful 
Mad. du Chatelet, this immortalized **« Doris" of St. Lambert, 
this sole object of all that Rousseau ever knew of passion, at 
once his theme and his inspiration, had not one feature, one tint 
or trait of personal attraction, which love could exaggerate into 
beauty, or imagination endow with a charm. The secret of her 
influence over the hearts of all, whom she sought to interest, 
was the ardour, the sensibility of her character, the tender, pas- 
sionate cast of her manners, and the playfulness and redundancy 
of her all-creative imagination. Retaining, to the last hours of 
life, the freshness of the first, she inspired the feelings she pre- 
served. Age grew young, as it listened to her, and youth forgot 
that she was old, when she spoke. Take her with her frailty and 
her merit, her faults and her virtues, France only could have 
produced such a woman; in France only such a woman could 
have been appreciated. Mad. d'Houdetot, in the possession of all 
her faculties, and almost of all her graces, died at the age of 
eighty-eight, surrounded by her friends, and I y her grand-chil- 
dren, the offspring of her only child, the present general, the 
Baron d'Houdetot. 

I have to lament, in common with Monsieur Humboldt, that 
I arrived too late in Paris to have seen this interesting and ex- 
traordinary woman. But occasionally associating with those, 
who once had the happiness to live with her, I delightedly 
tracked the print of her steps, in those elegant circles, over 
which she had once presided. May I here be permitted to ack- 
nowledge the polite attentions I received, while in Paris, from 
the amiable sister of Mad. d'Houdetot, Mad. de Briche, at 
whose Sunday evening assemblies I have so often found united, 
vuliatever Paris contained of rank, talent, beauty, and fashion. 

de la gmicherie et de la grace, tout-d-la fois. EUe avoit de Pesprit tres naturel et 
tres agreable; la gaiete, Vetourdcrie, et la na'iveti s'y marioient heureusement. 
EUe abondoit en sallies charmantes, qu'elle ne cherchoit point, et qui pari oierit quel- 
que fois, malgre elle. EUe avoit plusieurs talens agr€ables, jouoit du clavecin, dan- 
fsoit bien,faisoit d'assez jolis vers Pour son caract€re, ilitoit angilique, la dou- 
ceur d'dme enfaisoit lefond; mais hors la prudence et la force, il rasseftibloit tou- 

tes le$ vertus." [Madame de H was near thirty, and was not handsome. 

Her face was marked with the small pox, her complexion wanted delicacy, 
she was near sighted, and her eyes were round; but she had long black hair 
curling naturally, which descended below her waist. Her shape was neat, 
and there was in all her motions a mixture of awkwardness and grace. Her 
wit was natural and agreeable; gaiety, giddiness, and simplicity, were happily 
united in her. She was always saying the most charming things, which were 
never studied, and often inadvertent. She had many agreeable accomplish- 
ments. She played on the harpsichord, danced well, and made very pretty 
verses. Her temper was angelic, particularly in its mildness and softness; 
she had every virtue except prudence and energy. 



SOCIETY. ±%tf 

These evenings recalled to my imagination the little court, 
which surrounded her sister-in-law, Mad. d'Epinay, where 
statesmen and ministers mingled with tiie Diderots, Rousseaus, 
the Grims, and the Holbachs,* in the saloons of La Chevrette. 

*********** 

I was speaking one day to a royalist lady on the many 
charming qualities of a mutual friend of ours, and on the excel- 
lent character of her husband. She replied with a shrug, 
" quant a lui, le bon homme, c'est une excellente personne ; cependant, 
machtre,ilneremplitpasl'dmede sa clmrmante femmef [ <4 it must 
be owned that the good man is a most excellent being ; but still, 
my dear, he does not fill the soul of his charming wife."] This 
want of having her soul occupied by a husband, to w r hom she had 
been twenty-live years married, I thought rather an exaction, 
on the part of the " charmantefemme" and I could not help ob- 
serving, that, notwithstanding this singular refinement upon 
married happiness, I considered Monsieur et Mad. de **** an 
exemplary couple. My royalist friend agreed with me ; add- 
ing, that it must be confessed " I'amour conjugal" was much 
more prevalent since the revolution than before; and that 
« maintenard, il-ij-a d'excellens menages dans la France." [« that 
now there is a great deal of domestic happiness in France."] 

This is indeed an avowal universally made by the French of 
all parties ; and more consideration is attached to this tie, 
when respectably maintained, and faithfully observed, than to 
any other domestic relation of society whatever. 

It is now supreme mauvais ton [vulgarity] to resort to the old 
worn-out jests levelled at men, who attend to their own wives, in 
preference to those of others; and iudeed, I observed, in all public 
societies, and in the many and various entertainments given 
at court, on the marriage of the Due de Bern, that the women, 
and particularly the young women, were always accompanied 
by their husbands. It would be difficult to ascertain the precise 
minimum of sentiment, which goes to make up the sum of mar- 
ried happiness in France, and to draw a scale of comparison 
between the stock of conjugal affection, which exists in that 
country, and in England. England, however, has some good 
old habits in her favour, invariably connected with the laws and 
government of a free nation, and which, perhaps, already be- 

* I had the pleasure of knowing the amiable niece of Baron Holbach, Mad. 

R • In talking 1 over the pretended conspiracy of the Holbach coterie, about 

which Rousseau so extravagantly raved, this lady assured me that the first 
cause of his quarrel with her uncle, was a present of four dozen of singularly 
fine Champaigne, which the baron sent to the philosopher; sm insult that Rous- 
seau never forgave. The little pour -parlers, to which this gave rise, terminated 
in a rupture, out of which Rousseau's vivid but hypochondriacal ima^inatieft 
conjured all his long train of" chimeras <#'<?." 

T 



£38 SOCIETY. 

gin to survive their source and origin, while some taint of the 
original sin of despotism is still, in France, to be found operat- 
ing even on private society. The play given to natural feelings 
for twenty-five years back, may not even yet have quite righted 
those errors, that rose out of institutes and habits, which the 
abuses of many centuries contributed to form, to perpetuate, and 
to excuse. 

Married life has always been most respectable and most 
sacred, under free governments ; while under the influence of 
political despotism, women, treated either as slaves or as sul- 
tanas, are never wives. It is thus that they once reigned in 
France, by an undue influence, subversive of all their natural 
virtues. It is thus that they still serve in the East, with that 
corrupt depravation both of ,morals and intellect, which inevi- 
tably re-acts upon their tyrants — and vindicates insulted nature. 

As it is not the fashion, in France, to believe that the sole 
duty and object «qf heaven's last, best gift," is to 

" Stickle fools, and chronicle small beer," 

women are there frequently the friends of their husbands, even 
when ties, more passionate and tender than those of friendship 
cease to exist. A Frenchman seeking a rational companion in 
the wife, who perhaps never was his mistress, frequently finds 
in her society that frankness, pleasantry, information, and even 
good fellowship (if I may use the expression), which pos- 
sesses a charm too often neglected in married life. How true 
Frenchwomen however can be, in feeling and in sympathy, to 
their husbands, has been painfully evinced during the horrors 
of the revolution, the struggles of twenty-five years' emigra- 
tion, and, above all, during the political vicissitudes and con- 
flirts in France, which have occurred since the return of the 
Bourbons.* 

The distracted and devoted wives, who were seen almost 
weekly in the gallery of the royal chapel of the Thuilleries, by 
sympathizing multitudes, pleading at the feet of the king, for 
the lives of their brave, but condemned husbands, afforded such 
pictures of conjugal devotion, and exquisite sensibility, as few 
countries could rival, and none surpass. 

* Some of these heart-rending scenes took place during" my residence in 
France, and even while I was present in the chapel royal ; but I had not the 
courage to witness them. Mad. d'Angouleme is said to have pulled her gown 
out of the convulsive grasp of one of these -wretched suppliants, with such force, 
as to leave a piece of the royal drapery behind her. It is to this strengtfyof 
feeling in her royal highness, which none of her " ser's weakness" has vet 
subdued, that the ultras allude, when they exclaim: "Madame a beavcoup dr 
caractfre Elle joue vn grand role" [" Madame has a great deal of character 
She plays a grand part ! !"] 



SOCIETY. |3g 

The young and unfortunate. Mad. La Bedoyere, dying of a 
broken heart for him, whom her tears and supplications couid 
not save ; the struggles, the exertions, the almost manly efforts, 
made by Mad. Ney, are cited even by their enemies, as incom- 
parable.* The ready self-immolation of Madame La Valette, 

* Madame la Valette has the character of being- one of the most virtuous and 
excellent women in France It was on the failure of her affecting applications 
to the king 1 for the life of her husband, that the following song was made at 
Paris : 

Complai7ite de la Valette. 

La Valette est condamne, 
Tout le peuple est consterne, 
Et tout bas chacun repute : 

La Valette. ("bis J 
Pauvre la Valette. 

Le Roi. pour se regaler, 
Voulait le faire etrangler, 
Et chaque Bourbon repete : 

La Valette. fbisj 
Peris la Valette. 

Sa femme, pour le sauver, 
A leurs pieds court se jetter, 
lis repoussent sa requete, 

La Valette. f bisj 
Pauvre La Valette. 

Le Roi lui dit, en courroux, 
Madame, retirez-vouz, 
Faut, que justice soit faite. 

La Valette. fbisj 
Peris La Valette. 

Elle va dans la prison, 
Lui preter son cotillon, 
Son vitz-schoual, sa cornette, 

La Valette. (~ bis J 
Sauvre La Valette. 

Pour leur remettre l'esprit, 

Le bon La Valette prit 

De la poudre d'escampette, 

La Valette. ( bis J 
Sauve La Valette. 

La d'Angouleme en rougit, 
Le Comte d'Artois fremit, 
Le roi n'a pas sa braie nette. 

La Valette (bis) 
Vive La Valette. 

[This song has very little merit in the original, and would appear to still 
greater disadvantage in a translation. The following is the sense of the first 
stanza : 

La Valette is condemned, 

The people are all in consternation ; 

Every one repeats in a low voice : 

La Valette, 
Poor La Valette.] 



44tf SOCIETY. 

who knew not, and feared not, the results of the task she had 
undertaken ; and the sacrifices of Mad. Bertrand, who so 
willingly gave up a world, where she still reigned supreme in 
the unproscribable influence of fashion and beauty, to follow her 
brave husband into a voluntary "and dreary exile ; these are 
splendid instances of conjugal virtue among a host of other ex- 
amples, less distinguished by the rank of the parties, but not 
less deserving of publicity and praise. It is the fashion, how- 
ever, for modern travellers, and the writers of modern travels, 
to declaim against the fidelity of French wives, to boast of 
their own bonnes-fortunes, and to 

" Talk of beauties, which they never saw, 
And fancy raptures, that they never knew." 

But limited in their experience by the difficulty, which all strcm- 
gers 9 and particularly British strangers, find of obtaining ad- 
mittance into the interior of private society and domestic life, 
in France, they have drawn their pictures of the actual state of 
French society, and their character of its women, from such 
originals as were presented to their observations in the courts 
of the Palais Royal, or in the bad novels of the days of 
Louis XV. 

With the exception of a few men of very high rank, and of 
those connected with the English government, and holding mi- 
nisterial or official situations, I never met in any circle or society 
whatever, in Pans, a single subject of the British dominions.* 
##*##*■###** 

The progress of general illumination must always forward 
the interests of morality. Knowledge, once confined in France 
to a certain class, f and considered as an etat, is now universal- 
ly diffused, and felt to operate upon all the ties of social life. 
Husbands no longer boast the philosophy of the Richelieus^: and 

* It is needless to make exceptions, in favour of such men as Playfair or Da- 
Vy, who belong to all countries and ages, and who, in scientific France, were na- 
turally received with that deference and respect due to their genius and the 
benefits they have conferred on their species. The genuine simplicity of pro- 
fessor Playfair' s manners was a subject of general admiration, and remarked 
by all who had the happiness of being known to him, at Paris. 

-f- Anne Due de Montmorenei, high constable of France, defending himself 
against the imputation of having given his authority to a libel against the Prince 
de Conde, declared that his secretary must have deceived him, by changing 
one paper for another — " ce qui etoit iVautant plus aise" said this distinguished 
nobleman : " que je ne sais, ni lire, ?u ecrive ! ! /" [" which he might easily 
have done, as I can neither read nor write." 

\ The pleasantries and witticisms of the famous Due de Richelieu, on the gal- 
lantries of his duchess, are 1o be found in every encyclopaedia of wit. The 
grammatical precision of the celebrated academician, Monsieur de Beaugde, 
•-it die moment he made a discovery fatal to his honour and conjugal happi- 
ness, is too well known to need citation. 



SOCIETY. £44 

des Beaugees ; while wives are so coquettish, as occasionally 

" D' aimer jusqua' a leurs JWaris." 
[" To love even their husbands."] 

Some French women expressed to me no little indignation 
at its being supposed, that French husbands did not exert a de- 
cided authority in their own families; as Russian brides exhi- 
bit the cane, with which they endow their husbands on the 
wedding-day, for the purpose of domestic correction. 

«* Les Anglais se trompentfort" said the charming Madame 
de C** C***s to me one day, « s'Us croient que les Francais ne 
savent pas atissi sefaire obeir. Il-y-en a beaucoup, qui entendent 
cela a merveille ; maisje pense que c'est mains a la mode en 
France, qu'en Angkterre. D'ailleurs, ma chere, je suis forcee de 
convenir q\Cil manque a nos mans une chose forte essentielle au 
bonheur. C'est de pouvoir nous mettre une corde au cou, et nous 
conduire au marche. quand its sont de mauvaise humeur /" [*< The 
English are much mistaken if they think the French husbands 
know not how to command obedience. There are many who 
are well versed in this art ; however I think it prevails less 
in France than in England. Besides, my dear, [ must ac- 
knowledge that our husbands want one thing very essential to 
Conjugal felicity — It is the power of putting a rope round our 
necks, and conducting us to the market, when they are in an 
ill humour."] 

To this custom of selling wives with halters round their 
necks, among the lower classes in England, the French make 
constant allusions. There is nothing places our own national 
prejudices in so strong a light, as thus coming in contact with 
the national prejudices of others. In England, all French 
husbands are considered as « des messieurs commodes." In 
France, all English husbands are frequently distinguished by 
the epithet « des bridals." 

" Voila," said a French lady, with whom I was driving in 
the Champs Elysees, "voila, Miladi * * * * et son brutal" 
pointing to an English couple not celebrated for their conjugal 
felicity. Of the frequency of divorces in England ; their pub- 
licity, which reflects the mother's shame on her innocent off- 
spring; the indecent exposure of the trials, where every respect 
for manners is brutally violated, and the pemnianj remunera- 
tion, accepted by the injured husband, the French speak with 
horror and contempt; particularly as women, whose character 
is no longer equivocal, are received in the English circles of 
Paris, by persons of the highest rank. 

" Your divorces," said a French lady to me, « seem not to 
proceed, in general, from any very fine or delicate sense of 



J4& SOClfiTV. 

honour; but to be as much a matter de convenance between the 
parties, as marriages formerly were among us." Legal di- 
vorces are rare in France: formal and eternal separations, 
made privately by the parties, are more general ; and when 
love survives, in one object, the honour and fidelity of the 
other, measures of greater violence are sometimes adopted, 
more consonant to the impetuous character of a people, whose 
passions are rather quick, than deep-seated, and who frequently 
art upon impulse, in a manner which even a momentary reflec- 
tion would disclaim. 

During my residence in Paris, a young man of condition 
destroyed himself, on having obtained proofs of his wife's frailty. 
A few weeks afterwards, a gentleman shot himself through the 
head, in the church-yard de Vaugirard, not because his wife 
was faithless, but (as he declared, in a written paper found in 
his pocket,) because she was insensible to his own passion. 

A more interesting case of conjugal suicide was related to 

me, while I was travelling through Normandy. A Mons. C , 

whose beautiful seat I saw near Rouen, had destroyed himself, a 
few months before, on the tomb of his deceased wife. She had 
inspired this romantic husband with the most ardent passion; 
and died in the prime of her beauty, and of her youth, of a rapid 
decline. Monsieur C struggled in vain against the des- 
pondency her loss occasioned. The unequal conflict between 
reason and feeling finally decided him on the desperate step, he 
had long meditated. He devoted some weeks to the arrange- 
ment of his affairs (for he was a rich manufacturer of cloth;) 
and having settled his large property on his infant children, 
whom he committed to the guardianship of his brothers, he put 
a period to his existence, assigning no reason for this act of 
desperation, but his total inability to enjoy life, after having 
lost her, who had so long made it precious to him. 

On the subject, however, of conjugal virtue in France, I have 
an authority, which it may not be here inappropriate to cite, as 
being of a less sombre nature. Whoever has visited the me- 
morable and beautiful village of Chantilly, may, perhaps, have 
noticed the handsome Mad. de Pinte Amelot, and her gallant 
husband, the aubergisies [the host and hostess] of the hotel de 
Bourbon Conde. Mad. Pinte, with her large blue eyes, and 
" coiffure a la Chinoise," [.her hair dressed a la Chinoise] and 
Monsieur, with his loose military redingote, [great coat,] and 
his black silk cap, worn on one side, " d'un air gaillard, 9 ' [with 
an air of gallantry,"] are characters to put even the sulky 
Smellfungus into a good humour: and to create a new page of 
sentimental observation, in the journal of Tristram. 

I was one morning standing at the door of " Vlwtel de Bour* 



SOCIETY. 44 3 

Ion Conde," conversing with the intelligent M. Pinte Amelot 
(who spent his day in parading before his inn, and in talking 
to the passengers,) when the appearance of the charming Mad, 
Pinte, at one of the windows, gave rise, on my part, to some 
complimentary observations on her beauty. 

" M, Madame" [" Ah, Madam,"] observed her husband, 
« elle est aussi bonne que belle ; cfailleurs c'est un garcon ivfniu 
ment spirituel, que mafemme," [*« she is as good as she is hand- 
some ; and besides the rogue has a great deal of wit."] 

I now complimented him, upon his conjugal admiration, add- 
ing that, « I had always heard there was very little < amour 
conjugal? in France ; but that he had undeceived me." 

« Comment donc 9 sacre /" [" How then !"] he replied in a 
passion. " No conjugal love in France ? En tons terns, Ma- 
dame, [In all ages madam,] we have been famous for our con- 
jugal virtues : I could cite you a thousand examples myself: 
moi, qui vous parte," [« I who am speaking to you."] 

I asked him for one, par exemple: « Tenez, Madame," said 
Mons. Pinte, counting on his fingers. « voild notre Helo'ise et 
Jlbelard ; et puis, notre Pyrame et Thisbe ; voila que voulez-vous 9 
Madame?" [" See madam, there are our Eloisa and Abelard; 
and then, our Pyramus and Thisbe \ there, what more would 
you have madam ?"] 

Thus backed by M. Pinte Amelot, and « Pyrame and Thisbe,' f 
it is, perhaps, unnecessary to cite another instance, in favour 
of the prevalence of conjugal love, de tout terns, en France. 

While married life, in France, has evidently gained by the 
change, which has been effected in the manners and habits of 
the country, gallantry, in the modern acceptation of the term, 
is, in its influence and extent, much the same as in England, 
The result of idleness and vanity, it is inevitably more preva- 
lent in those elevated circles, where rank and opulence exclude 
occupation, and leave the imagination and the passions open to 
any engagement that comes as a resource, affords an obstade, 
or awakens an emotion. 

As long as the frailties of a French woman of fashion are 
6( peccaie celaie;" as long as she lives upoi4%ood terms witli her 
husband, and does the honours of his house, she lias the same 
latitude, and the same reception in society, as is obtained by 
women similarly situated in England, where, like the Spartan 
boy, she is punished, not for her crime but for its discovery. — 
There, a divorce only marks the line between reputation, and 
its loss: society will not take hints, and a woman must publicly 
advertise her fault, before she can 06 tain credit for having com- 
mitted it. 

The high circles of Paris are to the full as indulgent, as those 



144 SOCIETY. 

of London. Lovers understood, are not paramours convicted; 
and as long as a woman does not make an esciamlre ; as long 
as she is decent and circumspect, and « assumes the virtue 
which she has not," she holds her place in society, and con- 
tinues to be, not indeed respected, but received. Gallantry, 
however, in France, is no longer that cold system of heartless 
egotism and profligacy, which avowedly took as its governing 
maxim, that 



" L'objet quitte, n'a ete que prevenu ,•" 

[" The forsaken object has only been anticipated;"] 

which coldly calculated the probable duration* of a passion ; and 
which, systematic in its ardour, as in its cruelty, soon changed 
an idol into a victim, and followed up the jargon of affected de- 
votion with the language of opprobrium and disgust. f 

But while few of those « Cupidons dechain&s," [" Cupids un- 
ehained,"] who made gallantry the business, end, and object of 
their lives, are now to be found let loose upon society in France, 
a sort of « galanterie banale" [" common gallantry"] still pre- 
vails, which seems inseparable from the French temperament. 
Men still offer, as a duty, that assistance, homage, and, res- 
pect, which the women seem to take, as a right. And if, in 
these anti-chivalric times, there yet remains a spot where man 
seems a ** Preux [gallant] by nature, and woman may be a 
« queen for life" it is unquestionably France. Even age, there, 
does not inevitably dismiss one sex from the lists of admiration, 
nor release the other from the obligations of attention and re- 
spect. " Avoir un charme, jusqiCa dans les rides,' 9 [« To be 
charming even in wrinkles,"] is not confined to those forms, 
which time has spared, and over whose waning charms love 
still sheds the reflection of his departed light. Even mind, 
there, partakes of the attraction of sex ; and the brilliant fancy 
and inextinguishable sensibility of Madame D'Houdetot, at 
seventy, awakened an admiration as genuine and as lively, as 

* When one of the coartlai sautes of Louis XV. proposed to him a lady of 
rank, as successor to \l&. de Pompadour, after a moment's consideration, he 
replied, " Non, elle couteroii trap a renvcyef" [" No, she will cost too much if 
she is sent away."] 

•j- The frail and fair Countess de Guebriant sent a billet to the Due de Riche- 
lieu, to let bim know she awaited him, by appointment, near the "cottrdto 
emsinee" ['"court of the kitchens,"] in the palois-voyal. He replied, " liestez-y, 
et charmex lea marmitom, pour lesque's vow Hes faite. Adieu, mon ange ! ! /" 
[•' Stay there then, and charm the scullions, for whom you were made. Adieu 
my angel ! ! :"] Cruelty and contempt were the usual povr-suivons [successors] 
of love and devotion, in that school of French gallantry, which began towards 
: c of the reign of Louis Xl\ . and wasavery different sentiment from 
tin- elevated and romantic gallantry, -.Inch declined, together with the spirit 
of the French nobiuly, after the wild but gallant conflicts of the Fronde, 



SOCIETY. 145 

the personal charms of Ninon de 1' Enclos obtained, at three- 
score. 

I know not whether it may be deemed fatal, or serviceable to 
morality, that the spirit of slander meets no encouragement in 
French society, and that a tendency to defamation is considered 
an irrefragable proof of ill-breeding, and vulgar origin. This 
seeming leniency to the faults of others, does not wholly spring 
from an indulgence, indiscriminate in its views of good and 
evil. It arises, to a certain degree, from a fulness of mind, a 
copiousness and fluency of conversation, that is never driven 
by its own barrenness to the discussion of subjects, merely and 
invariably of a personal and private nature. Few are so idle, 
so ignorant, or so shallow, as to be indebted to the frailties of 
their neighbours, or their friends, for their sole topic of con- 
versation and remark. 

There is also, indeed, on this point a circumspection, which 
leaves the mere stranger in Parisian society liable to imposition ; 
for few like to " throw the first stone" and « Je ne la connais 
pas" [« I do not know,"] is the usual reply to any enquiries 
made on the subjects of such females, who, though not of the 
family " de la pruderie," still hold their precarious place in 
society, by a decency and propriety of conduct, which lay sus- 
picion at rest. 

The innumerable sets, circles, and parties, into which the 
immense mass of Parisian society is broken up, does not admit 
of that universal exposure of character and conduct, which, in 
a smaller sphere of action, or where society is more blended, 
and forms one great whole, places every member of the com- 
munity before the mirror of general observation. None but 
characters of eminence and celebrity can be brought before the 
tribunal of public opinion in Paris, and receive the indelible 
marks of infamy or high consideration. To whatever extent 
domestic virtue and conjugal fidelity may be carried, in France, 
by the dissemination of useful knowledge, and the progress of 
moral philosophy, it is extremely difficult to come at any direct 
proofs of their violation. For besides that refinement and re- 
serve, which decline the slanderous communications of the idle 
and the malignant, the long-established laws of decency, with 
that conventional idea of bienseance, [propriety,] so implicitly 
obeyed, govern imperiously the forms of French society. It 
may be that, in strict observance of its dictates, more virtue is 
affected, than is practised; yet no vain boast is ever made of a 
vice which, though fashion may sanction, morality condemns; 
and those, who err « by stealth," have the good taste to " blush, 
to find it fame." 

It is indeed curious to observe the severe prudence, united to 



|46 SOCIETY. 

the childish volatility of this paradoxical people whose charac- 
ter and government seem so long to have been at variance, as 
to have mutually re-acted upon each other, and reconciled ex- 
tremes almost irreconcilable, the one always leading by its dis- 
passionate and amiable elements towards that virtue, which the 
other endeavoured to obliterate by slavery and corruption. And 
though the long-inculcated habits of a base morality on a parti- 
cular point, must still have left much of its taint behind it, and 
though the severer and well-developed principles, which free 
countries possess, may not have taken a universal root in France, 
yet how favourable to the cultivation of moral qualities, the 
mild and genial temperament of the French nation has ever 
been, is best evinced in that extensive propriety, which even 
the most vicious respect, and the most degraded do not violate. 

In the lowest places of public amusement, in the most mixed 
and motley assemblies, all is decency and seeming propriety. 
No look shocks the eye, no word offends the ear of modesty and 
innocence. Vice is never rendered dangerous by example, nor 
are its allurements familiarized to the mind of youth, by the 
publicity of its exhibitions. This propriety of exterior, this 
moral decency in manners, has been made a subject of accusa- 
tion against the French by recent travellers, who demonstrate 
their patriotism, by extolling even the licentiousness, which, in 
England, openly presenting itself to public observance, marks 
by very obvious limits the line between vice and virtue. But 
England, the first country in the world, because still the freest, 
will disdain this parasitical eulogium on all that is faulty in her 
social institutions, and a country which, at this moment, is 
struggling equally against the insidious influence of private and 
public corruption, will surely not rank those among her friends, 
who would intoxicate her with an incense of indiscriminate 
praise, and confounding her virtues and her faults, lull her into 
that vain-glorious security which has ever been in all states the 
sure fore-runner of slavery and degradation. 

It is owing to the extreme propriety and even purity of man- 
ners, preserved in all public places in France, that young fe- 
males of every rank and condition, well brought up, may re- 
main ignorant, as far as their own observation goes, that there 
does exist a wretched portion of their sex, who eat the bread of 
shame, and live by self-degradation. But no woman of any 
rank or age, who has only once visited a public place in England, 
can escape becoming the involuntary witness of the most un- 
blushing vice, of the most brutal indecency. 

This Clinical mode of study in morals, formally recommended 
to the innocent and the inexperienced ; this purposely leading the 
sane and the vigorous to the bedside of disease and of death ; 



SOCIETY. l^f 

this guarding and preserving health, by exposing it to the ob- 
servation and infection of malady, is a singular paradox in 
moral doctrine. But surely, when in the accidents of public 
society chance places vice within the sphere of virtue, if the 
former borrows the veil of decency in respectful deference to 
the latter, and shame, blushing and awe-struck, still survives 
the loss of its companion innocence, the cause of moral good is 
still supported, honoured, and preserved. 

While this decency of exterior extends itself to all the forms 
of public association, it is carried to an excess in private society, 
which sometimes banishes ease, and induces formality. There 
exists no such mode of gratifying vanity, without risking feeling 9 
as is practised with us, under the generic name of flirting, — . 
One of those honest, unmeaning, "flirtations" carried on in 
the corner of every drawing-room, where an English assembly 
is held, or pursued on the staircase, or doorway, to the great 
annoyance of all persons, not particularly interested in the al- 
liance, would shock an elegant society in Paris, beyond all 
power of endurance. In affairs of the heart, French women 
know no medium between love and indifference. They may 
have male friends, but they have no flirts; and if they have a 
lover, they would be as cautious of distinguishing the fortunate 
being in public society, by any marked preference, as an Eng- 
lishman of fashion would be of making love to his own wife, be- 
fore company. Speaking on this subject to a very clever and 
very witty French woman, Mad. d'E***d, she observed respect- 
ing the decency, even of the women most notedly gallant, " Les 
Francaises sont les seules femmes peut-etre 9 a qui il soit permis 
d'avoif des torts; car elles seules s 9 attachent a leurs devoirs et a 
la dechice, quand meme elles out une vertu de moins /" [« The 
French are the only women, perhaps, whose frailty may be par- 
doned ; for they continue their attachment to their duties and 
to decency, even when they have wandered from the path of 
virtue."] 

The public attentions paid by Englishmen, of the most dis- 
tinguished rank, to women of public and notorious characters 
in Paris, and their introduction of such persons into the private 
circles of society, excited universal indignation and contempt. 
It was in vain to talk to the French of English morality, while 
English women were seen to associate with, and even to pay 
respectful homage to some modern Lais of the day, whose 
fashion rather than her talent had become her passport into so- 
ciety. 

No public women whatever are admitted into good French 
company. Once « sur les planches" once upon the boards, 
whether as actress or as singer, they can never be recoived by 



148 SOCIETY. 

women of character and condition, except in their professional 
capacity, when they are engaged and paid « pour donner une 
scene," [« to give a scene,"] on some particular evening, to 
sing their bravura on the night of a private concert. The 
prima Donna of the opera is there never the prima Donna of 
private society. The well-known anecdote of some English 
duchesses holding the shawl of the late presiding deity of the 
opera house, in London, till she was at leisure to put it on, ex- 
cited infinite mirth in an assembly of French ladies, where it 
was related, in my presence. 

The imitative talents have indeed no false appreciation in 
France ; they rank, not before, but after original genius. While, 
in our circles, a fashionable actor, or first-rate singer, would 
be received with a more marked distinction, than an Otway, 
or a Cimarosa; in France the author and the composer would 
hold a place in public estimation, and in private company, 
which the actor and the singer could never hope to attain. Oh ! 
it is depressing to the feelings of high-minded and sensitive ge- 
nius thus to receive, in homely obscurity, its scanty remunera- 
tion, and neglected by its cotemporaries, to live only for that 
future day, which will come too late, to awaken the gracious 
emotion arising from conscious merit, crowned by success; while 
the imitative talents, which owe their being to its labours, and 
derive their materials from its imagination, are courted, feast- 
ed, and paid with an unsparing prodigality. Some of the 
best poets, in England, are at this moment struggling with 
a ** bare sufficiency" far from those circles, which their talents 
were calculated to irradiate and delight ; while Italian singers 
have recently returned to their own country, to purchase prin- 
cipalities, and English actors are driven to extravagant ex- 
cesses, by the superabundance of suddenly-gotten wealth, which 
they know not how worthily to employ, or prudently to accu- 
mulate. In this instance they certainly « manage these mat- 
ters better in France." 



« Le style a un sexe," [" Style has a sex,"] says Marivaux, 
« et on reconnoitroit unefemme a une phrase," [*< and a woman 
may be recognized by a phrase.'*] This observation is per- 
fectly applicable to Ills own countrywomen. There is in their 
language, style, and phraseology, something extremely sexual, 
a finesse, a delicacy, a tact, a sort of instinctive appropriation 
of every word to its subject, which the fine perception and 
flexibility of woman's peculiar structure can perhaps alone ori- 
ginate. The verbal criticisms of a French woman on literary 
productions, even her personal observations, are delivered with 
a pointed and well turned elegance, which makes every sen- 



SOCIETY. j^g 

tence an epigram. And on subjects of mere sentiment, on the 
developement of a feeling, or the analysis of a passion, they 
speak with a precision and a facility, which, if sometimes defi- 
cient in originality, are always directed by taste, and express- 
ed with terseness. 

Perhaps this talent, or acquirement (and I believe it is part- 
ly both,) is sometimes carried to an extent that savours of study, 
and approaches to affectation ; even though « sentir le bel es- 
prit" [" to be taken for a wit,"] is an imputation which the most 
confirmed precieuse [precieuse — a finical affected woman] is 
now anxious to avoid. Much however must be allowed to the 
difference of national manner ; and the manner of the most na- 
tural Frenchwoman must carry with it, to English judgment 
in its first impression, the taint of affectation. Until experi- 
ence correct the error, her motions, her gestures, her air, all 
seem characterised by motive, and rather calculated, than in- 
voluntary. The sudden lighting-up of her countenance, when 
addressed, gives her, according to our phlegmatic standard of 
inexpressive quietude, the semblance « of calling-up," like 
Lady Pentweezle, « a look, for the occasion." And this, how- 
ever, is mere natural mobility, aided by habit and confirmed 
by fashion. And though it is impossible not to see, that there 
still remain in society many of these "faconnieres" [" affect- 
ed women,"] whose motions go « par ressort," [" by springs,"] 
who, like Moliere's Climene, make « la moue, pour montrerune 
petite bouche, et roulent les yeux, pour lesfaire paroitre grands," 
[« who purse up their lips to make a small mouth, and roll their 
eyes that they may look large,"] yet, generally speaking, all 
palpable affectation is, in good society, deemed full as vulgar 
and as ridiculous, as it is in England ; while whatever strikes 
as original or naive, in the manner of the women of other 
countries, obtains the tribute of unqualified and liberal appro- 
bation. 

Female education appeared to me much less systematic, and 
less professional, than with us; attended with infinitely less 
labour, and less pursued for purposes of exhibition. Music 
seems an acquirement, adopted only by natural taste and supe- 
rior talent. It makes no indispensible branch of education ; and 
its theory is even sometimes studied, where its practice is ne- 
glected. While pretension is thus universally discountenanced, 
the unsuspecting visitor, who enters the saloon, in search of the 
higher enjoyments of social intercourse, is never taken in, by a 
series of early preludes, and " useful grounds," performed by 
amateur debutantes ; nor is a feigned admiration volunteered or 
extorted, with all the corollary observations on new systems, 
or the merit and qualifications of the various fashionable and 



|50 SOCHETY. 

rival professors of the day. I dirt not indeed hear much amateur 
music in Paris; but what 1 did hear, was exquisite and finish- 
ed. One of the finest pferformers on the piano-forte, in Europe, 
is a young French lady of fashion, now resident in Paris, the 
charm of every circle, the soul of every society, in which she 
appears; and yet I believe there are few, who would forego her 
conversation, for her music; or who would not find her wit and 
pleasantry " still sweeter than her song."* 

Among the arts most pursued in the range of female educa- 
tion, painting seems the most prevalent. It is cultivated by 
women of the first rank with great success. f The liberal and 
spendid exhibitions of the best efforts of the greatest masters, 
both of the modern and ancient schools, which, until within the 
last two years, were open to the French public, afforded unpa- 
ralleled opportunities for the cultivation of taste and the for- 
mation of judgment; and native talent was called forth and 
assisted by the multiplicity of models and the facility of pursuit, 
which exevy where presented themselves. 

Still, however, in France, as every where, the arts are most 
indebted to those, who live by professing them. The best mu- 
sic is to be had, for money : the best pictures are those, which 
may be bought: and the universal passion of the nation for in- 
tellectual and literary pursuit, directs the views of female edu- 
cation more particularly to the cultivation of mind, than to the 
imitative talents. Reading and conversation are their resource 
and their habit ; and if they furnish society with fewer pretend- 
ing and inferior artists, they enrich it with a proportionate 
number of well-informed and elegant gentlewomen. 

It was observed by the patriarch of Ferney, in one of his cy- 
nical jits, that « les Parisiens parlent Men leur langue, parce qu'iis 
ii'en savent point dfauires,'" [•« the Parisians speak their own 
language well, because they know no other."] if he had said, 
« parlent point d'aulrcs" ["speak no other,"'] the observation 
would be better applied to the French of the present day. The 
French organ seems to lend itself with great difficulty to the 

* Mademoiselle d'Alpay, the young and devoted friend and companion of the 
Princess de Craon ; known to some of the first persons in England, by the ex 
erf ion of her talent and virtues, during a painful emigration. 

| It is impossible to touch on the subject of female accomplishments, in 
France, without noticing- the three charming- daughters of the late celebrated 
M. d'Esmcnard. These very ) oung ladies speak French, English, and Spanish, 
with equal elegance and fluency, and are first-rate musicians. Mad. kiis d'Es- 
mcnard, notwithstanding- her extreme youth, has already obtained some cele- 
brity for her exquisite talents in miniature-painting, and ranks high among the 
distinguished pupils of her master, Isabcy. By the recent changes in the go- 
vernment, the members of this most accomplished family have suffered much 
in their circumstances, and the daughter of an ex-minister now seeks resources 
of subsistence in a talent acquired from taste, for the purposes of amusement 



SOCIBTY. |5| 

formation of sounds, not strictly vernacular. I scarcely knew 
a woman in Paris, who did not read English, who had not read 
all our classical authors; yet I knew but three, who could 
speak it to be understood ; and two of those ladies had been in 
England. 

To understand, how totally different the rythmus of a lan- 
guage is from its appearance to the eye, it is necessary to hear 
it spoken by a foreigner, who never heard it pronounced by 
others. The efforts occasionally made by some of my fair 
Parisian friends, to address me in English, resembled very much 
the Eittempts at enunciation of the pupils of the Abbe Sicard, in 
his seminary for the dumb and deaf. The words seemed bolted 
out, after a little convulsive struggle in the throat, as Harlequin 
is made to articulate, in the Italian comedy, by a violent thump 
given him on the back. A very pleasant person, after an ineffec- 
tual contest with some guttural sounds of th and plu exclai med : 
"Ah! ma chert* c'est inutile; ce vilain Jlnglais me reste toujours 
au gosier."* [**Ah, my dear, it is useless; this ugly English 
always stays in my throat."] 

I never, however, found myself inclined to smile at their diffi- 
culties and their mistakes, that their own polite and kind in- 
dulgence to the ludicrous errors, which they hear every day 
made in their own polished language, did not give me some 
very compunctious « visitings of conscience. ,, The pains, in- 
deed, they take to translate a foreigner to himself; to clear up 
the confusion of his ideas, in the entanglement between two 
languages, are equally indefatigable and amiable ; and they 
have a peculiar expertness at this sort of verbal construing, 
which places their habitual good-nature in strong relief. I re- 
member a friend of mine explaining to the celebrated Mad. de 
V**te, the influence which the voice of the law in England held 
over the people; which, he observed, was sure to enforce obe- 
dience even to its most inferior officers. To illustrate this po- 
sition, he chose a riotous assemblage of the lower orders, sud- 
denly dispersed by the constable of* the parish. " Oui, Madame" 
[•< Yes, Madam,"] he repeated, " disperse par le connctable" 
[« dispersed by the constable."] 

The good sense of Mad. de V seemed rather to revolt at 

the connetable 9 s interfering upon such occasions ; and she began 
to sound the mistake by, « Comment done, monsieur, vouz avex 
aussi un grand connetable? Vou%wce% done aussi vos Amies de 
Montinorenci ?" [*« How sir, have you also a grand constable? 
Have you also your Anne de Montmorenci ?"] My English 

* I have often been much amused, by hearing- French ladies discuss thje 
merits of the style of Robertson, Hume, Gibbon, and Johnson. 



4££ SOCIETY. 

friend, provoked at her dulness, endeavoured to explain to her, 
that nothing could be less like the great Anne de Montmorenci, 
than the worthy compeers of Monsieur Townsend and Co. 
« Enfin, Madame," [« In short, Madam,"] he added, " un high 
constable, c'est un alguazil," [« a high-constable is an alguazii."] 

** Ah, seigneur dieu, monsieur," replied Mad. de V , (( qu'est 

ce que vous venez done a me dire? Vous avez des Mguazils! — 
vous autres Jiers repnblicains .'" ["Ah, Monsieur, what do you 
tell me ? Have you Alguazils ! — You proud republicans !"] My 

English friend was now completely posed, until Mad. deV 

undertook to translate for him, and with the customary " tenez, 
vous allez voir, 9 '' [« come now, you shall see,"] found a paral- 
lel for the grands constables of England, in some of the subal- 
tern departments of the French police." 

It is a very singular circumstance, that the return of the 
French emigrants from England, after a twenty-five \ears 
residence in that country, has absolutely added nothing to the 
stock of acquirements, in the English language or literature. 
Of the numbers whom I met in society, who had resided in 
England, I could never get one to speak to me in English, with 
the exception of the Prince Louis de la Trimouille, and the 
Prince de Beauveau. The usual reply was, upon all occasions, 
"J'entends VAnglais,maisje ne le park pas," ["I understand 
English, but I do not speak it."] 

I was at court the night that Mrs. Gallatin, the American 
ambassadress, was presented to the Duchesse d'Angouleme, 
who addressed her in French. Being informed that Mrs. G. 
did not speak French, her royal bigness expressed her regret 
to Mr. Gallatin, that she could not address his lady in English, 
as she could not speak that language, Madame d'Angouleme 
was received under the protection of England, while yet almost 
a child, and lived there twenty years. The emigrant nobility, 
indeed, seem to have stopt short with English literature, as 
with every thing else, at the reign of Louis XIV. They still 
talk with delight of the " Seasons of Monsieur Tonson," and 
enquire with unabated friendship after " Monsieur Yong, et les 
charmantes nuits," [" Mr. Young, and his charming nights."] 
A hundred times 1 have been offered a pinch of snuff, and a 
short criticism together, on English poesy ; beginning with, 
"Ah, madame, vous avez des poetes charmants, charmants ! 
Voire Tonson, par exemple ; et vos romans, madame, voire 
" Betsi Tatless," mais e'est un bijou, que votrc Betsi Tatlessf 
pour ne rien dire de la divine Cl'arisseS'* [" Ah, madam, you 

* I tried, in vain, on my return to England, to procure " Betsey Thought* 
less," the first genuine novel, 1 believe, written in the English language, that 
I might myself judge of the merits of a work, so highly estimated by some 
of my French friends. 



SOCIETY. 153 

have charming poets — charming! Your Thomson, for instance $ 
and your novels, madam, your Betsey Thoughtless — it is a 
jewel, that Betsey Thoughtless ! to say nothing of the divine 
Clarissa."] 

Italian and German are more spoken in France than English, 
though not more read 5 and all the continental languages indeed 
enter more into the system of education in France, since the 
revolution, than they ever did at any period before that event. 
The reason is obvious : France for a time held the same place 
in Europe, which Rome had once held in the then known world, 
and persons of all nations were found filling the public places, 
and congregations, in the private circles of its capital. 

It may be said of a French woman, what the king of Prussia 
said of himself: «« Lorsque je suis bien comprime, fai une res- 
source admirable, 9 ' [" When I am hard-pressed, I have admi- 
rable resources."] For the full development of the character 
and faculties, a French woman must be placed under the influ- 
ence of circumstances of great emergency. She makes a much 
better heroine than a housewife, and is more adequate to en- 
counter dangers and difficulties, which call for exertion, and 
bring great recompense, than to meet the bustling duties of 
every-day-life, which require only small sacrifices, but demand 
perpetual efforts. There is a sort of real or affected helpless- 
ness about French women of the higher classes, which renders 
them very dependant upon their domestics ; and a femme-de- 
ehambre, or maitre-d > hotel, has the same superintendence in a 
French family, as in England would devolve on its mistress, 
except she was of the very highest class, and at the head of an 
establishment, quite unknown in France. No woman of the 
lowest description meddles with the mysteries of dress-making : 
their needle-work is all ornamental; and I have overheard 
coarse, vulgar persons in shops and public places talk of their 
couturieres, [mantua- makers,] their marchandes de modes, [mil- 
'liners,] and their femmes-de-chambre, who had themselves by no 
means so respectable an appearance, as a second-rate house* 
maid in the family of an English gentleman. 

The ability and shrewdness of a French woman, of condition, 
seem indeed confined to the penetration of character, the deve- 
lopment of passions, and to subjects of taste and abstraction. 
She rarely applies the€ull force of her powers to the coarser 
business of life. She is unequal to those economical calculations, 
by which English thrift balances means, and regulates expenses. 
In the distribution of pecuniary matters, the femme comme U 
faut, the woman of fashion, is, generally speaking, an amiable, 
but thoughtless child. She gratifies her feelings and her pro- 
pensities with careless promptitude, gives her money to the 

x 



154l SOCIETY. 

relief of misery, or to the demands of her milliner, with ua- 
reflecting readiness ; and lays out her income in dress and cha- 
rity, trinkets and amusements, with prodigal simplicity. I never 
heard a French woman say any thing was dear ; and when I 
have often thought to astonish them, by the exorbitant charges 
of a tradesman, who I supposed had made me pay « en dame 
Jlnglaise" [•* like an English lady."] they have always assured 
me with « mais, ce n'est pas cher" [** but, it is not dear."] 

Among the middle classes, however, and most particularly 
among that large class of well-born persons, whom a long train 
of political vicissitudes have practised in all the extremes of 
wealth and of indigence, I am told the most rigid economy is 
united to that decency of appearance, which almost amounts to 
elegance. By this savoir /aire, [management] of the female 
heads of families, many are comfortably supported in Paris, 
and are enabled to enjoy the society of a select circle, on an 
income, which would scarcely maintain an individual, in & coun- 
try town in England. 

Economy, thus thoroughly understood, is still further pro- 
moted by the consolidation of families : for the breaking up and 
dividing the common resources, by a multipication of separate 
establishments, is an event of xtry considerable rarity. This 
blessed union of family interests and of family affections, which 
unites so many generations under one roof, and blends the views 
of the aged and the young, is one of the happiest aspects, in 
which the character and habits of the nation present themselves. 
The churlish separation of interests, which with us soon loos- 
ens the ties of parental and filial tenderness, which makes the 
aspiring son pant for that majority, which gives him an inde- 
pendent establishment, and renders the zealous father the sus- 
picious tenant of his impatient heir, is wholly unknown in 
France. Their domestic life is purely patriarchal ; every 
family consists of three or four generations, all gathered under 
the same roof, all assembling at the same hearth, and ranging 
round the same table. That cheeriness of spirit, that even flow 
of temper, which « opens in each heart a little heaven," pre- 
serves an harmony and order in the social government of every 
menage, [household] which the morbid humours and bilious af- 
fections, engendered by less genial climes and temperaqients, 
so frequently disturb. 

Among the many charming family pictures, which so ofteM 
gratified my heart and imagination, by the exhibition of united 
affections, may I be permitted to select one, which, for its 
brilliancy and beauty, might claim that preference, which my 
gratitude for attentions received from all its members unre- 
flectingly gives. I mean the family of the Prince de Beau* 



SOCIETY. £5g 

veau.* Interesting by its historical relations, but doubly in- 
teresting by its present position, and by combining, In its group 
of four generations, all that is venerable in age, respectable in 
maturity, lovely in youth, and charming in infancy. 

It is a most gracious sight to behold these little patriarchal 
circles always united, always together, enjoying the delicious 
freshness of the summer evenings, in all the public gardens of 
Paris. The grand-children, and sometimes the great grand- 
children, attended by their •« bonnes, 99 lead the van, with their 
light, bounding steps, and playful gambols; "les chers parens," 
[« the dear parents,"] as they are usually called, follow, and 
« le bon papa et la bonne mamma 99 [•« the grand-papa and grand 
mamma"] bring up the rear, with well-sustained gravity. 
Chairs are hired, or seats are taken immediately, for the elders ; 
while the younger party are permitted, under the vigilant eye 
of la bonne, to skip their ropes, or dance their "rondes; 99 to 
form hollow squares, or to mount guard (for all the boys are 
military,) while « les petites marchandes," or petites bonquetieres, 
["the little merchants, or the little flower-girls,"] with well- 
taught insinuation of manner, offer to "mesamiables demoi- 
selles,* or « beaux jennes messieurs," [« my amiable young la- 
dies or fine young gentlemen,"] their confitures [sweet-meats] 
and nosegays, for a remuneration, left to the generosity of the 
young purchasers ; with the usual observation of mademoiselle a 
la figure trop aimable, pour que je ne mefierois pas a sa genero- 
site, [Mademoiselle looks so amiable that I cannot but trust my- 
self to her generosity.] 

The femme-de-chambre is at this moment the same familiar, 
shrewd, important, and ostensible person, in a French family, 
as she appears in the Toinettes and Dorines, the inimitable sui- 
vantes [waiting-women] of Moliere. Sometimes the director- 
general of the establishment, she is always the cabinet-minister 

* The family de Beauveau is one of the most ancient houses of Lorraine, and 
they are princes of the empire. The uncle of the present prince was the 
celebrated minister of Louis XV; his maternal uncle, the no less celebrated 
Chevalier de Boufflers, the author of the letters from Switzerland, and the 
enfant cheri, [beloved pupil] of Voltaire. The Princesse de Beauveau, one of 
the most amiable women in France, is daughter to the Duke de Mortemart.— • 
Their eldest son, Prince Charles, is united to the sister of the Duke de Choi- 
seul Praslin, and co-heiress to the wealth of that rich and illustrious family. — 
Their second son, Prince Edmond de Beauveau, who, with his brother, attain- 
ed at a very early age to high military distinction, is at once a fair, and a 
splendid image of the youth of France, gallant, spirited, and impetuous, inhe- 
riting " I'esprit de Mortemart" [" the genius of Mortemart,"] as his maternal 
birth-right, with some of the romantic traits and arch humour, which distin- 
guished the youth of the author of the " Reine de Golconde" [" Queen of Gol- 
conda."] The young ladies, Natalie and Gabrielle de Beauveau, are, accord- 
ing to the standard of English taste, the loveliest persons in Paris. 



^55 SOCIETY. 

of her lady ; who generally brings her into the family, on the 
wedding-day, and she is not unfrequently the only female ser- 
vant in the house. 

As it is less the fashion with French ladies to « courir les bou- 
tiques," than it is with English ladies " to shop" almost all pur- 
chases are made by the femme~de-chambre, except matters of 
mere taste or fancy. And I have generally heard it observed, 
by women of my acquaintance, that the attachment and fide- 
lity of these persons rendered them perfectly worthy of the 
trust reposed in them. 

The suivante of the young married lady, frequently becomes 
in time la bonne of the matron ; and to her care the children 
are entrusted; even the first rudiments of their education are 
committed. La bonne is a charming character, peculiar to 
France: something between the Grecian nurse and the Spanish 
duenna ; with all the affectionate devotion of the one, and all 
the official dignity of the other. Respected by the servants, 
beloved by the children, and treated with consideration by her 
employers, la bonne generally remains in the family, after her 
young charge is consigned to the care of superior instructors.* 
Voltaire is said to have submitted to the jurisdiction of his 
bonne, at the moment that he exercised an absolute authority 
over the opinions of more than one-half of literary Europe. 

In one of the many delightful conversations I had with Ma- 
dame la Marquise de Vilette, on the subject, of Voltaire, her 
adopted father, she related to me some pleasant anecdotes (if 
the influence which Barbara, or, as he called her, Baba. his an- 
cient bonne, held over him. Barbara was an old Savoyard, 
peevish, irritable, and presuming; but devoted to her illus- 
trious charge, and watching with maternal solicitude over 
those infirmities of his age, which her own was exempt from. 
" One day," said Madame de Vilette, « during my residence 
at Ferney, while I was making my toilette, I was startled by 
the violent ringing of Voltaire's bell. I flew to his apartment, 
while Barbara (who always sat in his anti-chamber) hohbled 
after me. < Je Sonne mon agonie /' [< I am in an agony !'] vo- 
ciferated Voltaire, as we entered together. *Je me ??ie?t? , e, 1 — 
[* I am dying,'] he then explained to us, that he had drank a 
cup of rose water by mistake, and was almost poisoned. < Com- 
ment done V exclaimed the provoked Barbara, released from her 
fears, and restored to her ill-temper. 

* The establishment of a French family of rank and fortune generally con- 
sists of a ftmmc-de-chumbre and fetwne-de-charge a maitre d'hotel, and valet-de- 
chambrc ; [a waiting" woman and house -keeper, a steward and valet de cham- 
bre ;] two laquais or footmen, one of whom is the frotteur, [scourer,] {the fond 
de la maison,) performing" all the offices of a house-maid with us. To these 
are added chef. de-cuisine, and gar go n de* office, [the cook and the pantry-boy .]) 






society. 15y 

« Comment done ! II faut etre la bete des bites, pour faire une 
telle sott se." [« Why ! you must be the fool of fools to make such 
a blunder."] 

<• Bete* on non" replied Voltaire, with the subdued tone of a 
eluded school-boy ; " it n 9 est guerre plaisant d'etre empoisonnc 
me me par I'esprit de rose !" [" Fool or not — it is scarcely plea- 
sant to be poisoned even with the essence of roses !"] 

Moiiere had also his bonne, and Baba, and laForet, belong as 
much to posterity, as the illustrious geniuses, whom they had 
the honour to serve, in the responsible character of « la 
bonne y 

The state of domestic servitude in France, has, from the 
earliest times, evinced the inherently amiable and mild dispo- 
sition of the people ; a disposition which alone ameliorated and 
rendered durable the severity of the feudal system. The term 
domestique rarely carried with it any sense of degradation. In 
the days of Charlemagne, many of the great officers of the 
crown bore the same epithet as the domestic servants of the 
court. The ancient nobility placed their children in a sort of 
domestic servitude in the families of noblemen, more opulent 
and more powerful than themselves. Bayard, the "chevalier 
sans tache et sanspeur," [" the knight without fear and without 
reproach,''] was conducted, while yet a boy, by his father, to 
the castle of his rich and powerful uncle the bishop of Greno- 
ble, to enrol him among the youth of the prelates establishment; 
when, after mass, « On se mit a table, oil derechefchacunfit tres bonne 
cMre, et y servoit le bon chevalier, tant sagement et honetement, que 
tout lemonde en disoit du bienS [** they. sat down to table wiiere 
there was excellent cheer, and the goad chevalier waited on them 
with so much cleverness and propriety, that every body praised 
him."] The young Bayard soon learnt the graces of his of- 
fice, with all the address of the young Cyrus ; and when the 
Duke of Savoy came to dinner at the bishop's, "Bayard, ,? 
'says Theodore Godfroy, " le servoit tres mignonnement, 9 '' [« ser- 
ved him very prettily."] 

It is not very long since the Due de Bouillons* paid to the 
Noailles a pension, "parce qxCelle etoitla recompense desseiroices 
domestiques rendus par un Noailles a la maison de Turenne ft 
[*« as a recompence for the domestic services rendered by a 
Noailles to the house of Turenne ;"] and Louis XIV. talks of 
sending a "grand seigneur, qui est man domestique," [" a great 
lord who is my domestic,"] on an embassy to the Pope. 

* A curious incident took place some years back at Paris. Mons. G- 



a private gentleman, dressed his servants in the same livery as the Duke de 

"Villerois. The duke took exception to it. Mons. G e told him, that the 

livery was his own. and that the Villerois has formerly worn it 



158 S0C1ETV. 

Modern servitude in France, less dignified and respectable 
than in more primitive times, is still softened by many indul- 
gences, and rendered more tolerable, by the mutual good will 
which usually exists between the master and the domestic. The 
health and comfort of the servants in France are much more 
attended to than in any part of Great Britain. They are not 
confined, the greater portion of the day, under ground, in un- 
w holesome vaults, dignified by the name of kitchen and offices. 
The French office is on the ground-floor; or, frequently, every 
etage [story] has its little kitchen, where the chef-de-cuisine and 
the garcon tf office [the cook and the pantry-boy] only inhabit; 
all the rest of the domestics occupy the anti-room, which is too 
near the apartment of the superior of the family, to admit of 
boisterous mirth, or coarse impropriety. 

This chamber, generally spacious, looks into the court-yard, 
and is simply furnished with necessary accommodations : its 
stove is the foyer [hearth] of domestic sociality in winter, and 
in summer the open windows are equally attractive. Here the 
femme-de-chambre 9 always seated at her work-table, glances 
her shrewd look, from under the eye, at the guest who passes 
on to the apartment of her lady : here the maitre d'hotel looks 
over his accounts; and the vcdet-de-chambre reads his novel, or 
his play, ready to perform his office of groom of the chaviber ; 
while the more bustling frotteur, [scourer,] who in the evening 
assists as laquais, or footman, is engaged in all the active ser- 
vice of the house during the day. Here too are received all the 
servants who may arrive with the carriages of the guests ; for 
the lady and her footman walk up together; and each have an 
equally comfortable apartment to receive them. A poor gen- 
tleman in boots, or a prince covered with all the insignia of 
rank and royalty, seem to excite the same sensation in the anti- 
room. The servants all keep their seats, and no one attemps 
to rise at the entrance of the most distinguished guest, but the 
maitre d'hotel or valet, who is to throw open les grands battans, 
[great folding-doors,] with a theatrical air, and announce, with 
a most stentorial voice, the rank and name of the stranger. 

There is no contrast more shocking and violent, in English 
society, than that presented by the situation of master and ser- 
vants during the hours of social intercourse of fashionable 
London. For the one, the air is perfumed with roses, and the 
chill atmosphere of winter expelled by every artificial contri- 
vance ; and comfort, enjoyment, and accommodation are stu- 
diously accumulated. For the other, all is hardship, suffering, 
and endurance. Exposed for hours to all the inclemency of 
the season, in listless idleness, or in vicious excess (the neces- 
sary aud inevitable alleviation of their degraded situation,) this 



SOCIETY. l$ty 

large and useless class of persons gratify the ostentation of their 
masters, at the expense of health, and of every better feeling 
and higher consideration. 

In France, the health, comfort, and morals of the servants 
gain by an arrangement, which good taste, and good feeling, 
seem alike to have instituted. When the guests of the evening 
assembly arrive at the porte-cochere, [great gate] the porter as- 
signs a place, either in a vacant remise, [coach-house] or in the 
court-yard, for the carriage and horses, which, generally shel- 
tered from the weather, and shut up under the care of the por- 
ter, leave no further anxiety on the minds of the masters or 
servants, who usually ascend together the vast open staircase. 
While the former pass on to the saloon, the latter join the cir- 
cle of second-handed high life, in the anti-room, which, well 
lighted and well warmed, generally presents a card-table, where 
some round game is playing. Or, perhaps, little groups as- 
semble, while some one reads aloud the journals of the day, or 
some novel, tale, or vaudeville, [ballad ;] for every body reads 
in Paris, and the servants are neither last nor least among the 
studious.* 

I believe, indeed, it is peculiar to France, that there exists in. 
it a branch of literature, which, if not very extensive, is solely 
appropriated to the use aud benefit of servants. « Le vrai re- 
gime du gouvernement des Bergers et des Bergeres" [" The true 
administration of the government of shepherds and shepherd- 
esses,"] by Le bon Berger, [by the good shepherd,] is a very 
ancient production, applicable to the rustic menage, « Le. 
parfait cocher," [" The perfect coachman,"] supposed to have 
been written by the Duke de Ne vers ; « L'Jluteur laquais ;" 
" La vie de Jasmin, le bon laquais;" " La maison reglee ;" " Les 
Devoirs genereiux des domestiques de Pun et V autre sexe envers Bieii> 
et leur maitres et waitresses, par un domestique f and " Le moym 
de former un bon domestique;" [«» The footman turned author;" 
" the life of Jasmin the good footman ;" « the well-regulated 
house;" "the general duties of servants of both sexes, to God, 
and to their masters and mistresses, by a servant;" and "the 
way to make a good servant ;"] are all works of great utility, 
written with appropriate simplicity ; and making but a small 
part of the domestic library. 

* Passing- through the anti-room, at Mad. De Bridie's, one Sunday evenings 
I was accidentally detained there for a few minutes ; during which time I 
counted thirty servants engaged in playing round games. Among the showy 
French liveries, I perceived the liveries of the Hardwick family, of the British 
ambassador's, and those of some other distinguished British families. The 
English footmen seemed to assimilate very readily with French modes, and 
doubtless thought this apleasanter mode of passing their time, than waiting in 
the streets, or even struggling to get admittance under a temporary shed, in 
London. 



|60 SOCIETY. 

I was one day walking on the quai Voltaire, followed by our 
laquais de place, when he suddenly stepped up to. me, and, point- 
ing to a bookseller's shop, " Au grand Voltaire," [« The great 
Voltaire,"] he observed ; « Voild, Madame, une maison consa- 
cree au genie J" [« There, madam, is a house consecrated to 
genius !"] There died Voltaire — in that apartment with the 
shutters closed. « There," he added emphatically, « died the 
first of our great men ; perhaps also the lasV 

Upon all occasions, indeed, this intelligent attendant exhibited 
a knowledge of French literature, which, from a discovery he 
once incidentatly made, appeared to me the more surprising. 

I was one morning writing a note to the Baron Denon, and 
being a little doubtful of the purity of my French, I was read- 
ing aloud my billet to my husband, for the benefit of his gram- 
matical experience; when our valet, Charles, who was arrang- 
ing some flowers in the room, paused in his work to listen to 
me. Before I had got half through my note, he interrupted 
me with, " Mille pardons, mais — Madame — '> [«• A thousand 
pardons, madam — but — "] and he hesitated. «* This is not 
French, then," I observed : "is it not so, Charles?" Mais, 
§ui 9 Madame, e'est Francaise si vous voulez ; mais ce n'est par 
pur, etpuis, pour le style c'est froid," [« Yes, indeed, madam, 
it is French if you chuse; but it is not pure, and then the style 
is cold."] 

« As for instance, Charles ?" 

«Eh Men, madame, par exemple, ["Well, madam, for in- 
stance,] you begin by saying, you regret that you cannot have 
the pleasure, &c. &c. and you should say, «je suis au desespoir, 9 ' 
[" I am in despair."] 

I proposed to Charles to write the letter himself, and that I 
would copy it. 

« You may write it, at my dictation, if you please, miladi," 
said Charles, « but for reading and writing,* 5 he added, " voild 
une branche de mon education, qu'on a tout afait negligee,* 9 [<« that 
is a branch of my education, which has been entirely neg- 
lected."] 

The note as dictated by Charles, was sent to Mons. Denon, 
and I believe holds a place among the other curiosities of his 
collection. 

The circumstance of this illiterate literatus quoting, and oc- 
casionally alluding, to works of celebrity,* notwithstanding 

• Speaking of La Belle Limona.di.ere [The fair Lemonade-seller] of the Palais- 
lluyal, Charles applied to her a line from Moliere : " EUe ovrre une grayide 
bouche, pour ne rien dire" [" She opens her mouth wide, to say nothing,"] 
adding " cur elk est nvw bete que belle," [" for she is as great a fool as she is 
a beauty.""] 



SOCIETY. 161 

liis having neglected the more vulgar attainment of reading and 
writing, induced me to make some inquiry as to his mode of 
study. Charles informed me that it was usual for the lower 
classes, in his quartier, to assemble at each other's doors in the 
summer's evenings, for the purpose of listening to some " lec- 
ture.' 1 All who could read, took the book in turn ; and those 
who could not, listened, marked, learned, and inwardly di- 
gested. 

The number, however, who cannot in tufn contribute to the 
instruction of their friends, is very small. Nothing is more 
usual than to see the hackney-coachmen reading on their stands, 
and even the " commissionnaires, 9i and the jwrteurs d 9 eau, [wa- 
ter-carriers,] drawing a duodecimo from their pockets, and pe- 
rusing it with the most profound attention, in the intervals of 
their labour. It is impossible to visit "les Halles," the Parnas- 
sus of the comic Vadee, without being struck with the market, 
opened equally for poetry and potatoes, for philosophy and 
fish, for herbs and history. There the cries of" Haricots verts" 
and « voyez, voye%, monsieur, des maqueraux frais," [« kidney- 
beans, and see, see, sir, here are fresh mackarel,"] are mingled 
with "voild les fables de la Fontaine, voild le Telemaque de Fe- 
nelon I voild les contes de Mons. de Voltaire /" [" here are La 
Fontaine's fables, here is Fenelon's Telemachus! here are Vol- 
taire's Tales !"] Food for the mind and for the body is here 
bought with equal facility, and both are adapted to the means 
of the humble purchasers; for it is certain that these hawkers 
would not carry their classical ware to the haunts of the lowly 
and the vulgar, if they did not find a ready market even among 
fish-wives and marchandes des heroes. 

The benevolent Mons. Chamousset, the Howard of France, 
projected a society for servants so early as in 1754, under the 
name of " ISetablissement pour les domestiques malades, et Vasyle 
pour les servantes hors de condition,' 1 * [« The establishment for 
sick servants, and the asylum for servants out of place."] Other 
similar establishments have arisen since the revolution, to im- 
prove their condition, and to provide against the inevitable 
evils of age and infirmity. 

There is no class, in France, whose manners so strongly re- 
tain the marks of the short-lived day of « liberty and equality," 

* " On conte" says the Abbe Gregoire in his excellent work, " De la domes* 
licite", 3 ' &c. " actuellement dans la capitale quatre vingts corporations de ce genere, 
qui embrassent au moins six mille families, ce que les / arte a Veconomie, aux bonnes 
teuvres, d Vassistance rcciproque" f_" We can enumerate as actually existing' in 
the capital eighty institutions of this kind, which take in at least six thousand 
families, and which give them habits of economy, * industry, and reciprocal 
assistance. "} 



I6g SOCIETY. 

as the domestic servants* There is indeed a certain line of de- 
ference and respect which they never pass : but within that 
boundary, they are communicative, easy, and almost familiar; 
and with their masters, as with their friends, they consult, ad- 
vise, forewarn, condole and rejoice, with undisguised sympathy 
and interest. I have frequently noticed, in the first houses, a 
servant tap his master on the shoulder, to direct his attention 
to some guest who stood in need of it. It would be there quite 
unnecessary to matte exception for a licensed risibility, in favour 
of « old Grouse, in the gun-room" as Diggory docs with M. 
Hardcastle. A French laquais feels the merit of a good story, 
to the full as much as his master ; and is almost as audible, in 
testifying his approbation. I have sometimes seen the servants 
almost convulsed with laughter, at the pleasantries and humour- 
ous stories that circulated among the guests, upon whom they 
were attending. 

The familiarity and influence of the servants at a certain 
period of society, in France, their acuteness, dexterity, and 
finesse, furnished the old dramatic poets and novel writers with 
their leading characters and plots. And though the general 
diffusion of knowledge, occupation of time, and improvement of 
morals, must naturally lessen the influence of low cunning, and 
dispense with the agency of unprincipled ability, still great 
quickness of perception, and shrewdness of observation, may 
be traced in the successors of the Scapins, and Mascarils, and 
Scagnarelles, of the older times. 

Shortly before I left Paris, a friend of mine told me that his 
valet-de-chambre, one morning while dressing his hair, perceiv- 
ing that he was reading La Bruyere, observed, « Cet homme la 
avait grande connoissance dn cozur humain ; mais il lux manqua 
une chose, e'est d'avoir tte valet-de-chambre.' 9 [« That man had 
great knowledge of the human heart ; but he was wanting in 
one thing, that of having been valet-de-chambre."] 

*********** 

In the curious epistolary correspondence, carried on for some 
time between Louis XV. and his friend, the Marechal Due de 
Richelieu, the king (always speaking of himself in the third 
person) communicates the following important decision — « Sa 
majeste a decide V affaire des parasols ; et la decision a He ; que les 
dames et les duchesses pouvoient en avoir d la procession ; en conse- 
quence elles en ont" [«* His majesty has decided the affair of 
the umbrellas ; and the decision has been ; that the ladies and 
the duchesses may have them in the procession ; consequently 
they have them.*'] 

In a country, where the despotic chief of the government thus 



SOCIETY. £63 

interested himself in the complexion of his subjects, and made 
the affair of the parasols an act of legislation, the toilette could 
not fail to be an object of national attention, nor escape the inter- 
ference of royal ordinances and legislative protection. 

Louis the XIV. the solemn Pope of all frivolities, presided 
with an infallibity of judgment never disputed, over the ward- 
robes of his mistresses. He seldom failed to attend the toilette 
of Madame de Maintenon, even when the graces had ceased to 
he the handmaid ; and it was in the dressing-room of the dan- 
phiiie [dauphiness] where Madame de Maintenon officiated as 
Dame d'dtours, [Tiring-woman] that the king irrecoverably lost 
his heart, subdued by the dexterity and grace with which she 
arranged the tresses of the royal head. " // est inconcevable," 
says that artful person, speaking of this circumstance, « comme 
Part de Men peigner les cheveux, ait contribu a mon elevation" 
[" It is inconceivable, how much the art of combing hair has 
contributed to my elevation."] 

The toilette, like the Aristotelian philosophy, reigned abso- 
lute over public opinion in France. — From its dogmas and doc- 
trines there was no appeal ; and Buffon's maxim of « you may 
know a man by the sort of coat he wears," was received into 
general application. All, therefore, who were not « mis noble- 
ment et avec magnificence," [« nobly and magnificently drest,"] 
decided at once their own inferiority of qualification and con- 
dition. 

Crebillon (himself a man of fashion) makes much of the me- 
rits and success of his heroes depend upon their being « vetus 
&uj)erieurement, avec gout et avec noblesse" [" drest in a supe- 
rior manner, with taste and elegance."] In like manner, his 
heroine becomes interesting, according to the shades of her 
rouge, and irresistible from the air of « une coeffure negligee,"* 
[" a neglected head-dress."] 

When the virtuous Roland, the republican minister of Louis 
XVI. first appeared at the court of Versailles, the peculiar 
homeliness of his toilette excited a universal sensation. In.the 
minds of those, who held their own existence, from the observ- 
ance of certain etiquettes, and who believed the safety of the 
government would be endangered by their violation ; the round 
hat, and the black shoe-strings of the new minister, awakened 
the most perfect consciousness of his inability to fill the office 
lie had obtained. Monsieur de B * *, the master of the cere- 
monies, the very « glass of fashion and mould of form," express- 
ed his anxiety on the subject to General Dumourier, who was 

• See Lex Egarements de caur et de Vesprit. — [The wanderings of the heart 
and mind. 



164 SOCIETY. 

present, with (i voyea done, mon ami, pas menu des boucles dans 
ses souliers" [•< you see, my friend, he has not even buckles in 
his shoes/'] 

« Jllu Monsieur /" ["Ah, sir,"] exclaimed Dumourier, with 
well-affected gravity, shrugging his shoulders, " tout est perdu" 
[« all is lost."] 

Robespierre, during the most sanguinary period of his reign, 
w T as distinguished by the delicate and affected recherche [fasti- 
diousness] of his dress ; and a muslin waistcoat, lined with 
silk, couhur de rose, [rose colour,] and a coat of " bleu le plus 
tendre," [« the softest blue,"] was the favourite costume of this 
monster 5 who, inaccessible to every feeling of humanity, still 
submitted to the influence of fashion. 

While modes have recently changed in France, with govern- 
ments and institutions; while the tunic of Jlspasiah&s succeeded 
to sacks and hoops, and has been superseded in its turn* by ruffs 
and farthingales ; while the chignon a la Sevigne, [rurls a la se- 
vigne] or coeffure de Ninon, [head-dress of Ninon,] now tri- 
umph over la tele a V Jigrippina, [the head of Agrippina,] or the 
flowing tresses of the Venus JLnadyomene ; still, under all 
changes and vicissitudes, the toilette has preserved its empire 
and its influence unshaken and undiminished. 

The « cloud-capt towers and gorgeous palaces" have melted 
and dissolved away ; the royalists have become rebels, cour- 
tiers turned republicans, and coquettes become Roman ma- 
trons : — still the temple of fashion has kept its station of emi- 
nence unshaken; and it still finds its vestibule crowded with 
votaries, and its altars smoking with frankincense and myrrh. 

Napoleon, who scanned with a searching eye all that was 

* I have occasionally assisted at the toilette of some of my French friends, 
and been much amused by the questions of their femme-de-chambres, [waiting- 
women,] or their female coeffeurs, [hair-dressers,] as to the important arrange- 
ments of the day. " Quelle co'djfure madame a-t-elle choisie P Veut-elle etre coef- 
fee a la Ninon ? ou d la Grec ? Madame est charmante a la Sevigne. Et superbe 
d V Agrippina" [" How will madam have her hair drest ? Shall it be a la Ninon ? 
or a»la Grec ? Madame is charming a la Sevigne. And superb a l'Agrippina."] 
The humour of the fair person occasionally decides her character and dress for 
the day, and sends her forth amerce republican, with a Roman head ; or a royal- 
iste outree, [a furious royalist,] "frisee naturellement, a la .Pompadour /" [" curled 
naturally a la Pompadour !"] " 1 am very ill to-day," said the excellent and 
amiable empress Josephine, (who, however, par parenthe'se, [by parenthesis] 
was an empress and a French woman ;) " give me a cap qui sent la petite sante" 
£" which looks like delicate health." A cap of delicate health was presented to 
her. " Mais c' 'est trop malade ! Vous croyez done, que je vais mourir ?" ["But it 
is too sick ! you think then I am going to die ?"] A head-dress of more healthy 
appearance was produced by the attendant. " Encore do?ic," [" What then,"] 
exclaimed the empress with a languid yawn, " vous me trouvez si robuste" [" do 
you find me so robust."] I had this anecdote from a person of rank, who was 
at this levee, who admired her virtues, and laughed at her caprices. 



SOCIETY. 165 

strong or feeble in the French character, turning it to the pur- 
poses oMiis own ambition ; made his due offering to the per- 
sonal vanity of the French, by consulting with boundless pro- 
fusion, and unequal splendour, their taste for dress. The cos- 
tume of his coronation and his court, the draperies of the state 
an : if the corporate and legislative bodies, were all marked by 
a richness and magnificence, unknown even in the most osten- 
tatious days of France. Each order had its livery ; and the 
dress and the sentiment were frequently dictated by the same 
power : and were adopted with equal readiness and prompti- 
tude, at his command. 

Buonaparte, however, who protected the toilette with one 
hand, and the altar with the other, as equally efficient agents 
in his views, was a mere Tartuffe himself in faith and finery ; 
and secretly indifferent to the external forms of both. His robe 
of a hundred skins, and his golden toilette, which now obtains 
the admiration of foreign royalty, and gratifies the curiosity of 
Europe by its exhibition; these "outward seemings" were 
all designed for the vulgar multitude. His plain blue coat and 
little kaU strictly copied from the costume of his idol king of 
Prussia, were for himself* 

* This two-fold character of emperor and man was extremely obvious to those 
"who knew him well He was quite a different personage to the few who had 
" leu petites entrees," [" the private entrances"] and the many who had only " les 
grandes" [" the great ones."] One who always enjoyed the privilege of the 
former, and who long lived with him in habits of intimacy, told me that going 
into his apartment one afternoon, when he was teie-d-tete with the young em- 
press, he found him in high spirits, and that having looked into the adjoining 
anti-room to see that all -was clear, he turned to Monsieur * * *, and said : — > 
" Dansez-vous encore?''' ["Do you still dance ?"] "Jfais oui, toujours" ["Oh ! 
yes. still,"] was the reply: " allons done" ["come then,"] said the emperor, 
" dansons !" [" let us dance !"] " H dansa," said Mons. ***, " tout d trovers, nous 
de tout son cceur," ["He danced not very well, but with all his heart."] This 
extraordinary man exacting the most profound respect in public, admitted, in 
private, the most unbounded familiarity, and thus frequently led those who were 
intimate with him to risk themselves beyond the boundary of propriety. 

General Rapp was devotedly attached to the emperor, but extremely care- 
less in his address and conversation with him. This veteran was standing one 
morning in the anti-room of Napoleon's private apartment, when he perceived 
one of the gentlemen in waiting conducting a man of very equivocal character 
into the imperial cabinet. This person remained a considerable time closeted 
with the emperor. Rapp grew impatient, and anxious for the safety of Napo- 
leon, repeatedly thrust his rough head in at the door to see whether all was 
right ; and as suddenly withdrew it. The suspicious stranger at last took his 
leave, and Rapp obtained his audience. " Que diable," exclaimed Buonaparte, 
as Rapp entered, " que diable voulez-vous done, en mettant votre tete a la parte 
comme cela?" [" What the devil did you mean by putting your head in at the 
door in that manner ?"] " C'est que je tremblai pour vmis," [" Because I trembled 
for you,"] replied Rapp, " for perhaps you do not know, that the person with 
whom you have been closeted is a traitor, a rogue, a swindler, enun mot, e'est tm 
Corse, vw'ld !" [" in a word, he is a Corsican."] 



105 SOCIETY. 

The toilette, under all governments thus supported in France, 
" Be par le Roi," by « the united and indivisible republic," and 
by the « ordonnance imperiale" reigns in the present moment 
with all its ancient supremacy. Intimately connected, as it 
now appears to be with legitimacy, in Europe, blending its in- 
terest, in England, with those of church and state, and occupy- 
ing the leisure hours of the majesty of Spain, # it assumes in 
France the same form, influence, and importance, as when her 
kings presided over tortoise-shell combs, determined, in council, 
on the re-instatement and restitution of a banished parasol. 

That « Esprit de systeme ;" that submission to rules and re- 
gulations to which the French seem to submit, from the neces- 
sity of giving ballast to their sail, by an artificial weight foreign 
to their own specific lightness, is observed equally in the ge- 
nius of their toilette, as in their poetry and their dramas. The 
regulated observances of both are never violated : both are 
equally deficient in imagination, and both are cultivated in 
despite of natural impediments. France has never been the 
land of poetry nor of beauty, and yet poetry is the passion, and 
dress the object of the nation. 

It is on this point that French women are most fallible, and 
lose all that is most interesting in their characters, or respect- 
able in their conduct. Here economy ends, and extravagance 
begins to know no bounds. Here all that is frivolous supersedes 
all that is essential; and all that is light floats to the surface. — 
The merits of the divine cachemir ; [India shawl ;] and the 
"joli mouchoir de poche brode" [" pretty embroidered pocket- 
handkerchief,"] rapidly succeed to financial discussions, and 
political arguments ; and, " combien de cachemires avez-votis, 
ma cherc?" [« how many India-shawls have you, my dear."] 
is a question, asked with more importance, and considered with 
more gravity, than would be given to the new political tracts 
of M. M. Chateaubriand and Fievee, by the many fair disci- 
ples of those grand vizirs of ultra-stateswomen. 

The elegant produce of the Indian loom is an indispensable 
object to every French woman, and from the estimation it is 
held in, one would suppose there was " magic in the web of it." 
I shall never forget the mingled emotions of pity and amaze- 
ment I excited, in one of my French friends, by assuring her, 
I never had been mistress of a cachemir. 

« Ah! seigneur Dien, mats e'est inconccvable, ma belle," ["Ah ! 
but that is inconceivable,"] and she added that I ought to buy 

* The king of Spain embroiders with great eleg-ance. Hitherto his works 
have been eonfined to the toilette of the Virgin Maty, whom he has latelv 
presented with some drapery, embroidered by his own royal hands. 



SOCIETY. £67 

•ne, with the produce of my next work. I replied : " I had ra- 
ther buy a little estate with it." 

« Eh, bien 9 ma cliere," [« Well, but my dear,"] she answered 
quickly, " un cachemir, c'est une terre, n'est-ce pas?" [« a ca- 
chemir is the same as an estate, is it not ?"J 

In fact, these valuable and expensive shawls generally do 
become heir-loams, in a French family. 

" Voila un trait de toilette pour vous, mon enfant," [« There is 
an anecdote of the toilette for you, my dear,"] said Mad. de 
Genlis to me one morning, as I entered her pretty apartment, 
at her Carmelite convent, to which she has retired. « Here is 
a trait will amuse you ;" and she related to me the following 
anecdote. 

A little before I had paid my visit, a young gentleman had 
left this celebrated lady, suddenly cured of a passion for a 
young married woman, against which Mad. de Genlis had long 
and vainly preached. She had argued the matter with him 
morally, prudentially, sentimentally ; she had even, like Mad. 
de Sevigne (in listening to her son's confessions, respecting 
Ninon,) tried to get in « un petit mot de Dieu :" [« a little word 
of religion ;"] but it was all in vain, until a shawl " peau de 
lapin" [" of rabbit-skin"] effected what the charming eloquence 
of Mad. de Genlis failed to produce. 

He had the night before attended his « chere belle" to a ball : 
she sent him to her carriage for her shawl. He flew to be the 
bearer of the superbe cachemir, breathing its kindred roses; but 
(death to every finer feeling of fashion, taste, and sentiment) 
the laquais drew from the pocket of the carriage — a shawl peau 
de lapin ! I .'" « Plus de prechements done, ma chere comtesse,^ 
[" No more sermons, my dear countess,"] added the convales- 
cent lover, " c'est une affaire fine !" [** the affair is over!"] 
Never can love and rabbit skins be associated in my imagina- 
tion ; and believe me, my dear madam, quHl n\j a pas oVamour 
a tenir contre un schall, peau de lupin!'''' [»< no love can stand 
against a rabbit skin shawl !"] 

The modern revolutionary mouchoir de poche brode [embroi- 
dered pocket-handkerchief] is a great refinement upon the roy- 
alist pocket-handkerchief of other times. This elegant expensive 
little article is as indispensable to a Parisian fine lady, as the 
oachemir ; and its effects occasionally seem equal to that of the 
A charmed handkerchief of Othello ; which did 

" An Egyptian to his mother give, 
To make her amiable." 

A gentleman once accused my charming friend, Mad. la 



10g SOCIETY. 

Comtesse d'H*#le, of having no lace or embroidery on her 
handkerchief. She laughed at his observation : " You are in 
the wrong," he replied, « car il rCy a rien 9 qui monte la tete d'un 
homme 9 comme le joli mouchoid'unejoliefemme," [" for there is 
nothing which strikes the imagination of a man, more than 
the pretty handkerchief of a pretty woman."] 

Every season has its peculiar lace, in France, and the an- 
nual festivals of the church are not, even now, observed with 
more punctuality, than the transition from point to Malines, or 
from Valenciennes to blond de fls, [thread blond] as their res- 
pective seasons recur. 

" Comment done, monsieur" [" How sir,"] said one of the 
gentlemen of the court to Monsieur I>^ # , looking at his ruf- 
fles; " vous voild en point, au mois de Mai!" [»<do you wear 
point lace in the month of May !"] 

« Cest queje suis enrhume" [« It is because I have a cold,"] 
was the excuse for the heaviness of lace, which is strictly appro- 
priated to the winter season. 

From the Majesty of France down to the most insignificant 
of his subjects, every bridegroom in the kingdom presents the 
« trousseau" or bridal wardrobe, to the fair object of his elec- 
tion and I observed that I never entered the morning apartment 
(which consists of the bed-room and the boudoir) of any young 
married woman, that the elegant corbeille and sultane did not 
present themselves among its most splendid decorations. 

"When the day of the royal nuptials of the Due and Duch- 
esse de Berri approached, the royal trousseau appeared to me to 
have become an object of national concern; at least to the 
court party. Wherever I went, I heard nothing but "when is 
the trousseau to be seen ? Where is the trousseau to be seen ? 
Have you got tickets for the trousseau?" &c. &c. &c. Field- 
marshals talked of it; ministers discussed it; veterans guarded 
it; poets sung it; and journalists eulogized it. It ran through 
all the alphabetical distinctions of " A was an apple pie:" and 
peers and deputies, ordonnances and bngets, were forgotten in its 
discussions. 

The first day of its exhibition was reserved for the royal 
family, who found in this revived ceremony, in favour of caps 
and petticoats, the return of that glorious reign, which so so- 
lemnly took cognizance of parasols. The next day was for the 
court and French nobility. The four following days were gi- 
ven to the gratification of such of the public, as had influence or 
interest, to obtain tickets of admission, from the Thuilleries. — 
Of these, there was no lack ; as it was a sort of state policy to 
revive a taste for gauzes and flowers, and "leather and pro- 



SOCIETY. £fl£ 

neKa," in a degenerated people, who for twenty years back had 
been formed 

" JDe se donner I' air d' aimer sa patrie" 

f_" To consider it fashionable to love their country,"] 

and to think as little of these important accessories of legitimate 
power, as if their ancestors had not bled at every pore, to pro- 
vide them for the best dressed kings in Europe. 

The population of Paris make the most accommodating and 
the civilest crowd of any metropolis in the world. I never on 
any occasion saw the French character forfeit its politeness 
and urbanity, but on the occasion of the " trmsseau." There 
the importance of the object overcame all forms and ceremo- 
nies; and the efforts, the struggles, that agitated the crowds 
which filled the court-yard of the palais des menus plaisirs, [pa- 
lace of the privy-purse,] occupied its vestibule, and climbed 
its great stairs ; the frightful press ; the irresistible crush ; the 
interference of the generals, too often unavailing ; the cries, 
the ejaculations, the prayers, the fears, altogether rendered the 
entrance to the royal trousseau one of the most awful, as well 
as most dangerous scenes, I ever witnessed. 

At last, after full two hours 9 efforts, and more suffering from 
heat and apprehension than I ever endured, we past the last 
barrier (for there were four to overcome, all guarded by mous-- 
quetaires, [musqueteers,] with their bayonets fixed), and ar- 
rived at the palladium of the royal toilette. A long suite of beau- 
tiful rooms were thrown open, whose lofty walls were thickly 
covered with robes of every hue, tint, web, and texture, from 
the imperial drapery of coronation-splendour, to the simple 
robe-de-chambre of British lace and British muslin ; from the 
diamond coronet to the bonnet-de-nuit ; [night-cap] while plat- 
forms or counters surrounding each room, were guarded off 
from the unhallowed touch of plebeian curiosity by silken cords, 
and placed under the surveillance [care] of the priests and 
priestesses of the toilette, in grand pontificals. These formed 
the sanctuary of all the minor attributes of the royal wardrobe* 
Every article of female dress, from the most necessary to the 
most superfluous, was here arranged, not by dozens, but by 
hundreds. Here queen Sheba might have died of envy, — here 
the treasures of the " forty thieves," or the " cave o/Baba Ab~ 
datta," were rivalled or surpassed, not only in splendour but in 
quantity. The life of the old Countess of Desmond would 
have been too short, though spent in dressing, to exhaust such a 
wardrobe as here presented itself; and if such was the stimptu- 






j^Q SOCIETY. - 

ous provision to be made for the future daughters of France, it 
may be truly said, that «« Solomon in all his glory, was not ar- 
rayed like one of these. 9 ' 

Among the spectators of these fairy treasures, I observed 
many of the nexv old French military. The croix de St. Louis 
[cross of St. Louis] sparkled on every side, and ambulating 
ribbons vied with those which hung stationary on their silken 
lines. " Mais, vest du dernier gout /" « c'est du dernier galant J" 
«« c'est superbe /" "c'est magmfique !" [" But, it is in the finest 
taste ! it is of the newest elegance ! it is superb ! it is magnifi- 
cent !"] w r as echoed from the lips of those, who may be soon 
called on to give the word of command, which is to succeed to 
the « en avanV of a more energetic leader. 

The triumph evident in the looks of these "chevalier de la 
tonne cause," ["chevaliers of the good cause,"] and of the 
dames who accompanied them, as they surveyed all the "pomp 
and circumstance of glorious" dress, was a proof how strongly 
it recalled to their memory or imagination that millennium, for 
which they have so long sighed, and now beheld fast arriving. 
This was going back at once to the halcyon days of Louis XIV. 
when more money was expended in fitting out the trousseaux of 
the nieces of the king's mistress, than would have pacified the 
murmurs of the famished people, who loaded the favourite with 
execration, and withdrew from the sovereign the title of 
« great," which he had never truly merited, and which he 
long survived.''* 

While France, degraded by her actual position, groans with 
ill-stifled indignation, as she beholds herself iu the thraldom of 
those powers she so lately held in subjection; while she is urged 
by her necessities to seek her resources in foreign wealth, to 
pay the foreign troops, under whose jurisdiction she exists, the 
policy may be questioned, as well as the taste, of thus expos- 

* The king 1 was so liberal in his donations to Mademoiselle D'Aubig-ne, when 
She married the Due de Noailles, that even Mad. de Maintenon feared that 
-"* le peuple n'ail le droit de lid reprocher d'enricher ses nieces an depens de rinttvH 
public" [" the people would have a right to reproach her with enriching* her 
nieces at the expense of the public interest/'] But when the Cardinal de 
Noailles wrote her word that the people cursed her, she cooly replied, " 8*H 
one rnaudit, e'eei qitil ne me connait pas" [" if they curse me, it is because they 
do not know me."] The wedding- presents of the king* to the favourite niece, 
were the government of several provinces to her husband, a pension of two 
thousand crowns, as pocket-money for herself, the same salary from the duche 
de Burgundy, diamonds to the value of fifty thousand livres, and eight hundred 
thousand livres, as a present des trices, [wedding present.] Shortly after these 
donations, Mad. de Maintenon observes, " ll n\i pas nn sons. Les moyensd'a- 
•voir de, I'urgent irritent ; puree qu'ils so/it tons violens" £«* he has not a penny — 
The means of g-etting* money irritate him .- for they are all so violent."] 



SOCIETY. ±yi 

ing to the eye of a divided people proofs of such boundless ex- 
travagance and idle vanity. 

When the marriage of the future queen of England lately 
took place, no such insult was offered to the people. The idol 
and the hope of a free nation, her look of health and smile of 
joy were the sole exhibition it sought and hailed with manly, 
heart-felt satisfaction. The people of England demanded only 
in their legitimate rulers the accomplishment of those promises, 
which obtained the throne for their family, who were not legi- 
timate ; and who, elected by the people, expelled from the na- 
tion the frivolous, bigoted, and oppressive race, who were so. 
For the rest, for "purple and gold, and fine linen;" for prince- 
ly wardrobes, and royal toilettes, they have no respect; and, 
interested in concerns of dearer moment, they leave such " un- 
substantial pageants" to the admiration of the waiting- women 
and valets-de-chambre of the royal household. Idle and de- 
graded as the crowds, who darkened the courts and chambers 
of the Palais des menus plaisirs, during the exhibition of the 
Duchess deBerri's toilette, must have appeared, in the eyes of 
strangers, and particularly of English strangers, it may be said 
upon this occasion, as upon all others, which call the character 
of the French nation into question, that Paris has a population 
for every thing : — for royal trousseaux, and free constitutions ; 
and that, amidst the various, motley groupings of its extensive 
society, will be found some of 

" The brightest, -wisest, meanest of mankind" 






FRANCE. 



BOOK IV. 

Paris. 



Que Paris est change ! les Velches n'y sont plus ; 
Je n'entends plus siffler ces teuebreux reptiles, 
Les Tai'tuffes affreux, les insolents Zoi'les. 

********************** 

Mes yeux, apres trente ans, n'ont vu qu'un peuple aimable, 
lustruit, mais indulgent, doux, vif, et sociable. 

********************** 

De la societe les douceurs desirees 
Dans vingt etats puissants sont encore ignorees. 
On les goiite a Paris, c'est le premier des arts; 
Peuple heureux ! il naquit, il regne en vos ramparts. 

Voltaire — Epltrcs, 

Je me suis empare d'une heureuse matiere ; 
Je chante I'homme a table. 

Berchoux, 



Habits of the Parisian Table. — Petits-Soupers. — Dejeuners a la 
fourchette.— 'Chateau de Plaisance. — Vincennes. — Chapelle ex- 
piatoire. — Hospitality. — Dinners. — The Soiree. — The grande Re- 
union. — The Bat Pare. 

IN the great social bouleversement [overthrow], which oc- 
curred at the first period of the revolution, every habit of life, 
connected with the old regime, submitted to the general change, 
and was abolished in favour of some new mode, leaning to the 
extreme of opposition. All was suppression and substitution. 
Even the highly-prized petit-souper [little supper], whether as 
the domestic passover of family re-union, or as the point de ras- 
semblement [collecting-point] of pleasure, wit, and fashion, shared 
the law of proscription ; and the substantial revolutionary break- 
fast, the dejeuner d la fourchette [fork-breakfast], was establish- 
ed, as more conformable to the laws of republican ethics, and 
more favourable to the preservation of health and morals. These 
breakfasts, however, with all the air of republican simplicity 
ascribed to them by their founders, were far from being com- 
Aa 






fl% PAKIS. 

posed of the black broth and bread of Spartan frugality. They 
combined every species of luxury and extravagance, instituted 
a new class in what Montaigne calls **la science de la gueule" 
[the science of the mouth], and by the wit ami gourmandise [epi- 
curism] of some of their presiding hierophants, added a new and 
very humourous branch to the high burlesque in French litera- 
ture ; while they refined, and multiplied the resources of the 
gastronomic art to infinitude. 

Before the revolution, few persons of any rank took a regular 
breakfast ; even their dinner was not always the most substantial 
or luxurious meal ; nor ordinarily that of etiquette. The hebdo- 
ihadary dinners, given by the professed patrons of wit and talent 
to authors and artists, and those of ministers and men in office, 
form nearly the sole exception. The supper, on the contrary, 
combined all that was brilliant in society, and elegant in display. 
a Le Due de Luxembourg ne dinoit point, et ne se mettoit pas 
presqu'd table" [The Duke of Luxembourg did not dine, and sel- 
dom sat down to table], says Rousseau, describing the daily ha- 
bits of the Chateau de Montmorenci ; adding, that the dinner 
there was but a slight repast, taken usually in the open air, *» et 
comme on dit, sur le bout de banc; au lieu que le souper etoit tres 
long" [and it is said, on the end of a bench ; but then the supper 
was very long]. 

To these suppers, given at nine miles distance from Paris, 
the gens comme il Jaut [the people of fashion] of the capital con- 
stantly resorted. The minister du Choiseul and the Prince de 
Conde were frequently among the guests, who drove out of town 
to a supper, as the fashionables of London now assemble for a 
late dinner, at their villas in its neighbourhood. 

In the time of the regency, it appears that Mad. de Simiani, 
the grand-daughter of Mad. de Sevigne, supped at seven o'clock. 
Even then, however, this was deemed an early hour, and was 
said to have been adopted, to accommodate her reputed admirer, 
the celebrated Massillon, who was obliged to return to the Ora- 
toire, his place of residence, before nine.* Down to the days of 
Louis XVI. the French supper was sufficiently early, to admit 
of every kind of parfy being formed, and enjoyed, after it was 
over. It was then the card table was made up, pharo com- 

* This eloquent preachrj and pious divine is traditionally reported to have 
been very paUant, ai.d susceptible to female charms, li was at on- of ihcse 
soupers, tcte-a-tcte, thai !*e is supposed to have made the following* stanza : 

«' Aimons nous tendreim nt, Elvire ; 

Ceci ii\ si qirnne chanson, 
Pour q'.i vmidroit en mciliiv, 

Alaib, pour nous, e'est tout de bon !" 



PARIS. jflQ 

menced, and the ball began. This meal was, in facf, but httle 
different from the present English late dinner; and as upon 
these occasions all the recherche of cookery was displayed, and 
every temptation was given to intemperance, the sonper was at 
least unwholesome; and it induced the physi. ian Dumoutin to 
declare, «* qiCil ne se relevoit jamais pour un homme, qui n' avail 
pas soupe" [that he would never rise in the night to visit a man 
who had not eaten supper]. 

Of these once elegant and fashionable entertainments, not a 
trac«> now remains. The only suppers I saw were very slight 
and simple refreshments, afters the bats pares [dress-balls]. • 

The most usual, and indeed the most fashionable evening col- 
lation, is « le the" which, without being strictly the English 
tea, or the French gouter, formerly taken between dinner and 
supper, combines much of what is best in both — the exhilarating 
beverage of souchong and hyson, with confectionary and ices, 
found only in France ; and green tea punch, not excelled even in 
Ireland. I have heard, however, many a veteran disciple of 
the gay, exciting petit souper, place this substitution among the 
worst changes effected by the revolution, and lament in pathetic 
terms, that 

(t Par un abus coupable, 
Les soupers sont proscrits — on deserte la table." 
[It is a shameful abuse that suppers are proscribed and the table desert- 
ed.] 

Coming into France with the old impressions of "frogs and 
soupe maigrcf 9 I was surprised to find that all that has been 
said of the excellence and substantiality of a Scotch breakfast, 
was rivalled, if not exceeded, by a French dejeuner. The 
morning after we arrived at La Grange, the vemrable cha- 
teau of General La Fayette, we found his family of three gene- 
rations assembled in the salon*, and the breakfast was announced; 
as formally, by the mailre-d 9 hotel, as the dinner had been the 
day before. 

On descending to the salle-d-manger [eating-room,] we found 
a long table profusely covered with roasts, ragouts, dressed fish, 
pastry, salads, fruits, and sweetmeats, with all sorts of wines, 
while tea and coffee were served round, pour la digestion; and 
the French breakfast literally ended where the English one be- 
gins. This style of breakfasting I found universal in every 
house, where I became an inmate ; and they were not few. It has 
been adopted within the last twenty years by persons of all par- 
ties, who have remained in France during the revolution ; many 
of whom, while they e sec rale the event, adopt and approve the 
modes and habits of life, which it has originated. 



|yg PARIS. 

The dSjeuner a lafourchette [fork-breakfast,] taken in the mid- 
dle of the day, is among the most fashionable entertainments of 
Paris, during; he spring season, and is usually given at the 
maison de plaisance* or villa, which is considered as a sort of 
half-way house in a half-way season, between the Parisian hotel 
and the provincial chateau ; w hile the petite maison is now as little 
known as the petit- souper ; and both have fallen together with 
the state of morals and manners, which instituted them. 

It was at one of these charming villas, on the shores of the con- 
fluence of the Seine and Marne, that 1 assisted for the first time 
at a dejeuner a lafourchette, as a fete de 9 etiquette. The invited 
guests, rather select than numerous (which is the case in all 
French entertainments), assembled in their caleches, berlins, 
cabriolets, and barouches, in the court-yard of the hotel <le 
Chahanais, as the starting point, for the chateau de Plaisance, 
where the Comtesse d'Hossonville, the "veritable Jmphytrion" 
[true Amphytrion] of this delightful day, aw aited to receive us. 

Ii was a brilliant morning of a true French summer. Our 
route obliged us to pass along the Boulevards Italiens and St. 
Antoine ; and the gaiety, the variety, the splendour of tln'se 
beautiful roads, crowded with fantastic groups, vibrating with 
cheerful sounds, and shaded by lofty and luxuriant trees, pre- 
sented a scene of animation peculiar to that pleasurable scit< j of 
life and hustle. In passing through the on. c elegant quartierof 
the Marais, the hotels of Madame de Sevigne, Ninon de I'En- 
clos, de Beaumar* hails, the ruins of the Bastille, and the stu- 
pendous monumental elephant of Buonaparte, were successively 
pointed out to us. These were curious landmarks to awaken, 
in so short a space, an host of associations, and to revive, al- 
most at a single coup d'ceil, recollections of very different epochs 
in French history, and in French soriety. It was our good 
fortune to have in our carriage Monsieur Dorion, the author of 
la bataille de Hastings* and of many other poetical works ; and 
never, surely, did the sojourners in a strange land find a kinder 
friend, or a more intelligent guide, than we experienced in this 
most accomplished gentleman. His kindness and attention be- 
gan with our arrival in Paris ; and it has far from terminated 
with our departure from Frame. 

Having passed the boulevards, the cheerlessness and silence 
of the environs of* Paris at once succeeded : for this great capi- 
tal* unlike London, is totally without those * l suburbian prolon- 
gations," which, pursuing the track of the great road, extend 
themsehes in double rows of habitations, in the front of dusty 
meadows, and stinted trees, and combining the desagr emeus of 
rural and of city life, form a combination, which 



PARIS. 177 

" Is not the country, you must own, 
But only London out of town." 

With the exception of the venerable woods, the village and 
terrific fortress of Vincennes, which we left on our right, no ob- 
ject presented itself to attract our attention, from the pleasant 
conversation we enjoyed in our own caleche [carriage]. 

Arrived at the chateau de Plaisance, we found its elegant mis- 
tress ready to receive us in the salon, which, by its parquet [in- 
laid floor], its painted wainscots, and massive furniture, recalled 
at once the vignettes, in which the heroines of Marmontel, the 
« Clarices," and the *» Ceciles," are depicted in rural retirement, 
and in which the localities of French manners are so faithfully 
portrayed. The gardens, the plantations, and the green lawns 
of PI Usance, are In their neatness, taste, and arrangement, all 
English; but the house, the furniture, the scite, the associations, 
are genuine} 3 French. 

When that gallant and accomplished voluptuary, Charles VII. 
at once indulging his taste and his passion, amused himself in 
the society of Agnes Sorel, with laying out the parterres of 
Mehun sur Yevre, while, devoted to love and pleasure, he per- 
mitted the Bed fords and Talbots to overrun his kingdom, and 
allowed " Henry of England," to be crowned at the metropoli- 
tan church of F ranee, # it was reserved for the syren, in whose 
chains he was spell-bound, to rouse him from this fatal dream, 
and to urge him to feats of force and valour, which recovered 
his kingdom, and procured him the title of »• le victorieux," 

It was after these victories, which diminished the English 
power in France, and produced the celebrated peace of Arras, 
that the king recompensed the elevated passion of his mistress, 
by giving her the territory and chateau de Plaisance, with the 
Isle de Beaute, near Vincennes, ** To the end," says the old 
chronicle, « that she might be in fact, and in name, Dame de 
BeautL"] 

in the vicissitudes of time the lovely territory of Plaisance and 
Beaute became the property of the Comte de ***, whose grand- 
niece and sole heiress, the present Comtesse d'Hossonville, now 

* Henry VI. crowned in the church of Notre Dame, at Paris, in 1431. 

f " On la nommoit," says Hainault, " Madame de Beaute ; c'etoit le nom 
d'un chateau proche de Vincennes, que le roi lui avoit donne ; et elle meri- 
toit bien de porter ce nom. Elle avoit l'ame elevde, et aimoit surtout le Uoi." 
Histoire de France, T- i. p. 384. 

["They called her," says Hainault, "Madame de Beaute; it was the name 
of a chateau near Vincennes, which the king had given her. She had a noble 
soul, and loved exclusively the king."] 

The chateau de beaute was built by Charles V. one of the best of the French 
sovereigns, at the same time that he finished Vincennes. 



178 PARIS. 

inherits it by his bequest. I know not what "nameless grace" 
Agnes de Sorel ma} have possessed, to have captivated royal 
hearts; but if her manner and conversation had any thing of the 
elegance and charm, which distinguished those of the present 
Dame de Plaisance, I can well credit their influence and fasci- 
nacinn.^ 

The dejeuner d tafourchette, though exhibiting great recherche 
[refinement] in the delicacies of the table, is by no means confin- 
ed to their enjoyment. The collation over, the salle- a -manger 
was deserted for the open air; and while some few of the party 
adjourned to the billiard-room, the rest accompanied Madame de 
Hossonville through the gardens and plantations, rich in flower- 
ing shrubs ; Whence, assisted by her historical recollections, we 
discovered, «* Lcfief des moineaux," the little feudal territory of 
the sparrows, which Agnes de Sorel had herself thus named, 
from the colony of bir Is which had settled there. Here, per- 
haps, in the very walks through which we were loitering, the 
powerful Georges de la Trimouille and the brave Dunois may 
have paid their chivalrous court to the "gentle Agnes;" Alain 
Chartier may have sung her praises; and the honest and unfor- 
tunate Jacques de Coeur have received her testamentary com- 
mands, when she dictated to him her last wishes, respecting her 
favourite lilt de Bcautt.] Here, too, perhaps Louis XV. first 
"drank delicious poison from the eyes" of Mad. de Chateau- 
roux : for it was at an entertainment given at Flaisance, by the 
grand-uncle of Madame (PHossonville, that that monarch first be- 
held the most beautiful and apparently the most amiable, of bis 
mistresses.:): Of the ancient chateau of Plaisance nothing re- 
mains, except some subterraneous passages, and at a little dis- 
tance from the modern building, les portes de beaute* old disman- 
tled gates, which open from tiie village of Nogent into the forest 
of Vincennes. 

* The Comtes d'Hossonville were g-ranrfs louvetiers de France [grand mas- 
ter of the wolf-hunters of France], and the father of the present count held 
that, ofiv e, u ruler Louis XVI. The Co itit de H — is among those of the an- 
cient n >..!itv who have rescued a great part of their property from revolu- 
1u> afy sdizure. He now hunts on his patrimonial territories, as his father did 
. him, arid is as keen a spor.sman, and as devoted to the pleasures of the 
field, as .1) Norfolk squire. He was chamhellan to the late emperor, being 
oblrged, Ike ninny other of the higher nobility, who remained under his go- 
v : ein, to accept of office; and he is a peer of France, under the present 
meni 

■j- De Ccenr, her confidential friend and executor, was accused of her death. 
Tl v , (1 Obi rlea VII faithfully as minister of finance, hut, like the unfortu- 
nate Maid of Orleans, was abandoned by the king, and sacrificed to the in- . 
1p iea of his enemies. 

\ The first year of Louis XV.'s reign was passed at Vincennes, where he 
held iiis court, and in the neighbourhood of Plaisance, which he sometimes 
visited. 



PARIS. 479 

On our return to the house liqueurs and a bouillon [soup] were 
served; and our carriages being ordered, w ith the addition of 
Mad. d'Hossonvilie's, who returned with us to Puis, (For she 
had only left her hotel in town, to preside at hevfete in the coun- 
try), we went to « promener en voiture" [take a drive] through 
the forest, and to visit the castle of Vincennes, en chemin faisant 
[in our way] to the capital. 

Despoiled as the forest of Vincennes has heen, from time to 
time, it still presents a very imposing and noble aspect. In that 
part, which immediately surrounds the castle, and which is call- 
ed ^ park, Louis Xi. planted a surface of three thousand feet, 
chiJry with oak;* and the spot is still marked, where the pious 
king, St. Louis, in the primitive simplicity of those rude days, 
held his court and presumed in council, under the shade of trees, 
planted by his predecessors.! 

The castle of Vincennes rises in the skirts of the forest. It 
w 7 as once the residence of the kin us of France ; and it has been 
too often the tomb of the victims of their uncontrolled despotism. 
We found the village of Vincennesfull of bustle and company ; 
the drapeuu blanc [white flag] floated over the towers of the for- 
tress ; a band played " vive Henri Quatre" [long live Henry the 
Fourth], before a rustic altar, crowned with lilies, and groups 
of military drank vin ordinaire [common wine], in loyal potations, 
before the door of every gninguette [tavern]. The royal family 
had just left the village as we entered it : they had visited it on 
ffee occasion of a review. It was also some royal holiday, and 
there was a dinner given hy the officers of the garrison, at the 
principal auberge [inn], all admittance»to the fortress was at first 
refused, for it was not open to the public. But an offi. er of rank, 
who was of our party, having written a noie to the governor, 
Mons. Puyvert, he immediately sent an order, which unbarred 
every gloomy portal, and unfolded to our view the dark entrance 
of that 

* Louis XI made his barber, Olivier, surnamed le (liable [the devii], the 
'concierge o> Vincennes. It was in his rei;;n, that state prisoners were first 
committed to its dungeons. It is curious to observe that this Louis, one of 
the greatest monsters that ever lived, was the first who took the title of 
Moat Christian King, and received the appellation of Majesty, " pen connu 
jusqu'alors" [till then but little known], says Hainault. 

f Mamie fois ai vii que le bon saint, apres avoir oui messe en ete, il se alle 
tsbattre au bois de Vincennes II se seoitau pied d'un chene, et nous fesoit 
seoir ties aupres de lui; et tous ceux, qui avoient a faire a lui. venaient lui 
parler, sans qu'aucun huissier, ni autre, leur donnat empechement" 

Joixville. Collection de Vffistoire de Fiance. 

[Often have I seen the good saint, in the summer, after hearing mass, go to 
recreate himself in the wood of Vincennes. He seated himself at the foot of 
an oak, and we all sat down round him ; and every one who had busjness with 
the king came and spoke to htm, nobody interfering to prevent them. 

Joinville.] 



180 PARIS. 

— — — — " Chdteau malheu^eux, 
Aux beaux e*prits s he'las ! si dangtreux" 
[Unhappy castle — so dangerous, alas ! to men of wit.] 

While this little arrangement was making, we had ample time 
to contemplate the imposing exterior of this anrjent edifice. The 
draw -bridge, its flanked towers, and above all its donj on [turret]^ 
so often the prison of worth, talent, and sensibility, seem to have 
been spared by time, as monuments of the dreary and terrific 
influence of bigotry and tyranny over human happiness.* Vin- 
cennes was always a place of strength. Rebuilt in 1337- by 
Philippe de Valois, and finished by Charles V. it has ^ice 
merely received some trifling accessions of strength, and it still 
retains much of its original appearance. On gazing upon the 
terrific aspect and immense height of its memorable keep, I found 
it difficult to understand, how pleasure could be so arbitrary in 
its views, that even kings should have sought it in such a build- 
ing ; and that the early Charles's and Louis's should have chosen 
the towers of Vincennes, ^ pour se soulacier, ets'esbattre" [fore- 
create and amuse themselves], as the old language of the quaint 
Joinville has it. 

When we had passed the draw-bridge (so often crossed by the 
bra\e and the unfortunate, with spirits subdued by oppression, 
and hearts broken by a sense of injustice and tyranny), we found 
the first court filled with artillery and ammunition, with all the 
frightful and formidable apparatus of warfare. Every object 
upon which our eyes rested was meant for the destruction of m an; 
for the abridgment of his. liberty, or the annihilation of h s ex- 
istence. A species of melancholy attraction riveted rm eves 
upon the donjon. I had so often read of it: so much of that 
chivalrous spirit of France, which early in life had captivated 
my imagination, expired here ; sometimes quenched by violent 
or ignominious death, sometimes wasted away in slow, silent, 
life-wearing oblivion. So much of the hold, fearless genius of 
philosophy had here sustained persecution, through the haras- 
sing medium of promised liberty, protracted imprisonment, and 
all the wearying alternations of suspense, that it seemed to me 
a monument of suffering, a «* brief chronicle," of times, dates, 
and events, suddenly presented to my view, round whirh the as- 

* " En passant devant Vincennes" says Rousseau, "fai senti, d la vue du don- 
jon, un d6chirement du caur, dont on remarqva I'effet sur mon visage [In passing 
Vincennes, says Rousseau, 1 have felt, at the sight of 'he turret, an anguish of 
heart, which shewed itself" in my countenance]. It is a curious instance of the 
shortness of popular conceptions, that the citizens of Paris, after destroying" 
the Bastille, should have suffered this fortress to stand It is a place of con- 
siderable strength; quite a place de guerre, made -s it were on purpose to 
overawe the capital, whose faubourgs are within the range of its cannon. 



PARIS. 181 

sociations of youthful study, maturing reason, and long cherished 
principles, closely rallied. There was not an ivy-twined loop- 
hole, a time-tinted bastion, belonging to this frowning; dungeon, 
(so long the terrific instrument of the caprice of tyranny, in- 
gulfing any victim whom power, thwarted in some darling pas- 
sion, might hurl into its noisome cells), bul had a specific power 
to awaken sadness, and to rouse indignation.* 

Many, indeed, of its features still remain, to recal the sad 
events which have occurred within its dreary walls. The casement 
still exists, through the bars of which the great Conde cultivated 
his pinks, during his long incarceration. His original crimp, and 
the cause perhaps of all his after errors, was his devotion to a 
beautiful wife, whom he refused to resign to the romantic passion 
of a grey-headed king. The chamber is still pointed out, which 
was occupied by Diderot, when he was sent to Vincennes, for the 
publication of his letter** Sur les aveugles ; [On the bli?id]" where, 
goaded by a sense of the injustice, of which he was the victim, 
his great and luminous mind had nearly sunk under the blow; 
for his reason was only saved from a total overthrow, by a timely 
alleviation of his sufferings. f In this fortress also, Mirabeau, 
during a five years' imprisonment, wrote his beautiful letters to 
the frail and fair Sophie, and composed his able work against 
lettres de cachet, of whose abuse he was himself a victim. 

But while events connected with the scanty portion of civil 
liberty, enjoyed in France for a thousand years before the revo- 
lution, crowded upon the memory, association suddenly snapped 
its chain ; and our own gallant Henry V. dying in the donjon of 
Vincennes, and resigning his conquered France into the hands of 
his brother Bedford, occurred to my remembrance. An host of 
images rose with this interesting recollection, and Hal and Fal- 
staff cheered for a moment the gloomy reflections, which conjured 
up their delightful vision. 

* Mans- de Luxembourg a eVe mene deux fois d Vincennes, pour etre conj route. 
On ?ie salt point le veritable etat de son affaire — Sevigne. [Monsieur de Lux- 
embourg- has been twice taken to Vincennes to be confronted. The true slate 
of his affair is not known. — Sevignc ] The mystery, which for some time hung* 
over the fate of the brave Marechal de Luxembourg, was so profound, that 
not only he was himself kept ignorant of his crime, buc his friends were in 
doubt, whether he was confined at Vincennes, the Bast. lie, or some other 
state prison The crime of which tins brave man wax accused, who had 
fought so many battles for Louis XIV"., was sorcery. '- On ne parte plus de 
Moris- de Luxembourg. J' admire vraiment comment les choses se passent? 1 [No- 
thing more is sa>d of M. de Luxembourg. 1 am truly amazed 10 see how things 
go on], says Mad- de. Sevigne; and in fact, a few days after the secret impri- 
sonment of the Marechal, the oblivion of the grave hung- over the life and fate 
of a man, who, a short time before, had filled all France with the echo of his 
feats. 

f Some personal traits in his work against a Mad. Du Pre de St. Maur, 
the cause of his detention in this prison. 

B h 






1S2 



PARIS. 



Our party consisted exclusively of ultras and royalists ; and for 
them, and indeed for us, there still remained an object >f interest 
and of sadness, within the dreary rounds of Vincemies, which was 
no phantom of memory, hut had its 

"Local habitation, and its name," 

and which struck at once with its melancholy influence on the 
senses and imagination. We had received permission to visit 
the « chapelle ardtnte" raised to the mrmory of the ><>ung and 
gallant Due d'Enghien, by the Duchcsse d'Angouleme. We 
were -conducted to a wing of the fortress hanging over the fosse 
[ditch* moat], in which the Due d'Enghien had been shot, and 
which fronts the forest. The concierge met us at the door of 
his apartment, and lighting a lamp, conducted us up a dark, 
narrow, winding staircase, rendered more sombre by the con- 
trasted brilliancy of the setting sun, in which, a moment before, 
we had been basking. 

As we reached a landing-place, considerably elevated, the 
lamp's flickering light suddenly gleamed on the polished firelock 
of a sentinel, who guarded the melancholy post, nd who car- 
ried arms to the military orders and stars of some of our com- 
pany. To find here, within the compass of a dark and narrow 
space, so confined, that tired vigilance could scarcely measure 
its wonted pace, an armed guard, h ad an effect that went at once 
to my heart; for it had never before throbbed amidst the terrific 
gloom and imagery of a state prism. It is not impossible that 
this soldier now guarded the remains of the man. whotn when 
living he had her<' also guarded in that short moment, which inter- 
vened between judgment and execution. To him the innocent 
and the guilty would be a charge of equal moment, and equal in- 
terest; for the creature of force, its instrument and its victim, 
the soldier takes every station his trade assigns him. His v< ry 
nature, broken down to the voice of command, dissolves all the 
feelings, faculties, and passions of man into the great and para- 
mount law of obedience — to-night, in the gloom of the castellated 
ditch, raising his murderous aim, and reaching the life- pulse of 
the royal d'Enghien; to-morrow, irradiated with the glories of 
the rising sun, he hears the voice he had haply obeyed in many 
a nobl r cause, now give the word — « My comrades, to the heart! 1 ' 
and the gallant Nev falls beneath his arm ; — the theme of every 
soldier's praise, over the watch-fires of distant fields, lies bleed- 
ing by the soldier's hand.* Oh, these are views of human con- 

* The d.iy before my visit to Vincennes, I had stood upon the spot where 
the unfortunate Ney was shot, at the extremity pf the gardens of the Luxem- 
bourg. 



PARIS- 188 

duct; these are scenes of human suffering, which sicken the heart 
and wither up its powers! Here civilised society loses its 
splendour, and the developement of the human faculties seem but 
to « multiply the power of doing evil!" 

The savage, whose joys and sorrows, whose life and death, 
are governed by the laws and passions of nature only, here, for 
a moment, stands opposed in proud superiority to that erring, 
cruel, and vain-glorious creature, to whom civilisation has lent 
but half its light; who, in his dangerous progress through semi- 
barbarism, has learned to pervert not to improve his faculties* to 
tread on the rights of others, not to respect and preserve, his 
own; and who, substituting power for happiness, and ambition 
for justice, seeks to become great, without endeavouring to be- 
come wise. 

To the right of the narrow landing-place, thus strictly guard- 
ed, in darkness and in silence, we were shown the little room 
which the Due d'Enghien occupied during-his short, sad dwell- 
ing in the fortress of Vincennes. To the left, a larger apart- 
ment, in which his hasty trial had taken place, exhibited a most 
gloomy ami imposing spectacle. Daylight was .wholly excluded* 
an i the room was laid out as for a funeral chamber, unechapelle 
expiatoire [an expiatory chapel]; it was lighted day and night by 
a lamp (la lampe ardentej, which hung from the centre of die 
ceiling. The walls were draped with white cloth, bordered 
with black; a low ottoman, of the same texture, ran along the 
floor. In the middle stood a hearse, covered with a velvet pall, 
richly embossed in gold, with the arms and trophies of the house 
of Conde. It veiled a small coffin, which contained all that 
could be collected, from the ditch of Vincennes, of the gallant 
d'Enghien — a few bones. A stone, on which it is said, his head 
had fallen, was placed beside it. In the back of this gloomy 
scene, hung a massive silver cross. Twelve immense wax ta- 
pers, in large silver branches, burned on each side of the bier. 
To the right was an altar, a crucifix, the sacramental vessels, 
and all the imposing paraphernalia of the ceremonies of Catho^ 
licism. Here is daily celebrated a mass for the soul of the de- 
ceased. Here, on the preceding day, Madame d'Angouletne 
had offered up her oraisons, at the shrine of her habitual devo- 
tion. Here slumbering sorrow might be roused into ceaseless 
vigilance ; and vengeance brood over images, created and com- 
bined to give it everlasting force. 

The recollection of the fate of the unfortunate prince, whose 
un buried bones were thus placed in melancholy spectacle ; the 
fatal policy which may, or may not, have necessitated his death ; 
the fosse pointed out where he had been executed ; the fortress 
itself, all produced a train of melancholy impressions, which I 



181 1 J ARIS. 

thought not easy to be effaced. We withdrew from the chapelU 
expiatotrc in sadness and in silence, and the eyes of more tiian 
one brave and devoted champion of the Bourbons swam in tears, 
as we quitted the remains of one of its most illustrious and gal- 
lant defenders. But the sun was still shining brilliantly : it was 
a French sun ; and we were a French party : we ascended our 
carriages, and bidding adieu to the gloomy towers of the Chateau 
de Vincennes, the coachmen cracking their whips soon brought 
us to Paris, and set us down at the doors of one of its gayest 
spectacles, the Comic Opera. 

As we entered Mad. d'Hossonville's box, we found the de- 
lightful pastoral drama of *» Rose et Colas'" half over; but we 
were in time to hear Ponrhard in some very pretty vaudevilles; 
and to witness the first representation of " Phis Heureux que 
Sage" [More happy than wise], a piece which was condemned 
beyond all hope of redemption, notwithstanding the fine singing, 
and the elegant and spirited arting of that most lady -like ac- 
tress. Mad. Regnaut. We waited to see the first act of the 
old farre, *< Les Femmes Vengees" [The Wives Avenged], which, 
by the authority of time, maintains its privilege of wearying the 
patience of the audience, by a succession of impossibilities, only 
relieved by traits of coarse humour and vulgar pleasantry. 
We then adjourned to the first restaurateur in Paris, where, 
over an excellent supper, we discussed the amusements of the 
day, and decided on the merits of the salade de volatile and cham- 
pagne of Mons. Beauvillier. 

" L'homme machine, l'esprit qui tient du corps, 
En bien mangeant, remonte ses ressorts." 

[A good meal winds up the springs of the human machine]. 

No one seemed exhausted ; all had been amused ; and the de- 
jeuner a la fourchette, which began so gaily, at midday, finished 
as gaily at midnight. I was, however, convinced, that i his 
genuine French entertainment was calculated only fop the elas- 
ticity of French spirits, for the enjoyment of a people whose re- 
sources are infinite; and who, more animated than active, de- 
pend rather upon their mental than upo/i their corporeal ener- 
gies, and know no weariness but that vvhich springs from inert- 
ness, and the absence of intellectual occupation. 

Several dejeuners a la fourchette, given to us by friends resi- 
dent in Paris, succeeded to the file champilre at Plaisancc, and, 
like that, they usually occupied the whole day. After one of 
these entertainments at Mons. Dorion's, we spent the afternoon 
in visiting the fin«' Library of the celebrated Mons. Langles, md 
some other private collections, finishing the evening at the The- 



PARIS. 185 

atre Francais. At another, given by Mons. Denon, we found 
ample and delightful amusement in examining the collection 
which occupies his apartments. Overall these hospitable feasts 
great refinement of manners, and an unclouded gaiety, universally 
prevailed, and banished the tedium so oppressive in the morning 
amusements of a less mercurial people. The custom in France 
of introducing conversation into society has a decided and very 
happy influence on the spirits and faculties of its members, at 
whatever season of the day they may assemble ; and time 
rarely passes "flat, stale, and unprofitable," to those, whose 
intellectual resources engage and diversity its hours, anil <* make 
to-morrow cheerful as to-day." 

An English gentleman, resident at Paris, assured me that an 
Irishman, whom he had known in France many years, left his 
small fortune to the only Frenchman who had ever offered him 
a dinner; at on< e to mark his own gratitude, and the rarity of 
the event. The outcry, indeed, amongst the strangers who now 
visit Paris, against the want of hospitality in ItJf inhabitants, is 
much more universal than it is well founded. Thousands have 
visited and continue to visit France, from every part of Great 
Britain, who have not even been so fortunate as the Irishman 
already rited. The particular position, indeed, of the English, 
with respect to the French nation, is not, at present, extremely 
favourable to the interchange of the rites and ceremonies of hos- 
pitality. But at all times, the French are neither so eager after 
society, nor so much in want of it, as to send « into the high- 
ways and lanes," to pick up such indiscriminate foreign guests, 
as may be inclined to accept an eleemosynary invitation, and to 
satisfy, at the same time, their appetite and their curiosity. 

No hospitality, and indeed no fortune, could hold out against 
those legions of the idle and the unoccupied, who, in the ex- 
uberance of wealth, or of undirected curiosity, leave England, 
to— 

Promener leur ennui ailleurs. 
[To parade their ennui elsewhere] 

The French, at all times circumspect in their societies, and 
averse from large and indiscriminate assemblies, have not learn- 
ed to extend their circles, or to multiply their invitations to 
strangers, since circumstances have inundated their capital with 
the people of all nations an I countries. 

The obscure, the unknown, and the unnoted, have therefore but 
little chance of obtaining admission into good French houses, of 
an v party or faction, if not particularly recommended, by letters 
or personal introduction. And I have known many self-sufficient 



i86 paris. 

persons, the centre of their own little domestic circle, the agree- 
able rattles of some particular coterie [so< iety], wounded in the 
very life-nerve of their amour-propre [self-love], on finding them- 
selves lost and confounded among the «* vulgar herd" of stran- 
gers, who, through the medium of that passe-partout [master- 
key], money, are allowed a free ingress to all public plac< s; but 
who go no further. These are the persons, who found a cha- 
racter for nationality, by exclaiming against every country but 
their own ; and who fancy themselves patriots, upon the pre- 
sumption of their preference for home. They feel not that their 
ennui and distaste, in foreign countries, are seated within them- 
selves; and they mistake their individual displacement for the 
dislocation of soriety. 

Few persons, I imagine, well introduced by letters of recom- 
mendation, orb) their personal talents, or relebiity, will join in 
this outcry against French hospitality ; or will deny that the ac- 
cess to a French house, where the stranger has once been re- 
ceived, is both easy and gracious. It is, however, quite true, that 
dinners of ceremony are by no means so general in Paris, as in 
London or Dublin. In the latter capital, hospitality has long 
lost its simple character; it is no longer the medium of sorial 
enjoyment; but the lure to ostentatious competition. Few de- 
sire to entertain, who cannot dazzle or outvie. Ruin too often 
treads on the heels of festivity ; the means and the measures 
rarely meet and are rarely calculated, while the spirit of display 
is in operation ; and he, who in justice to his children and his 
creditors, should not even indulge in " humble port," does not 
hesitate to treat his guests with « imperial tokay." 

The princely revenues of the English nobility, the immense 
opulence of the trading (lass of that great commercial country, 
while they multiply the artificial distinctions of society, permit 
an expenditure in entertainment, favourable to every competi- 
tion of vanity, or of pride. In France, w here property is more 
equally divided, where none are enormously rich, and none (it 
may almost be said) are absolutely poor, the modes and habits 
of hospitality are proportionate to the means; and in the ab- 
sence of display, they are directed exclusively by a taste for 
social and conversational enjoyment. 

The publi< and ministerial dinners are like those of the same 
description in other countries, and the dinners of the arch-chan- 
cellor Cambaceres, the hierophant of modern gastronomy, were, 
under the imperial' dynasty, models of elegance and of luxury. 
Still, however, the French dinner is, generally spe.king, in all 
its arrangements simple and unpretending. The length of the 
invitation seldom exceeds a few days, and is s< litnd to the uncer- 
tainty of all things human. It has frequently happened to us to 



PARIS. 187 

be asked to dinner, from reviews or other morning amusements, 
by some one or other of the party we accompanied. The addi- 
tional co\e»s were the onlv difference in the economy of the 
table, occasioned by our partaking the fortune du pot; and if all 
was not »* more tban hospitable good and moderately plentiful," 
the never-failing excellence of the cookery, at least, contradicted 
the aphorism of Berchoux, that 

" Un diner sans fagon, est une perfidie.'* 
[A dinner without form, is a che^t.] 

It is a maxim borrowed from epicurism, and adopted into the 
code of French good-breeding, that w un veritable gourmand ne 
se fait jamais attendre" [a true epicure never suffers himself to 
be waited for]. To be punctual to the moment, is a point of 
good-breeding rarely neglected. The guest is received in the 
anti-room, by all the servants of the family ; and the arrange- 
ment of the French apartments being generally en suite, the s«//e^| 
a manger is almost invariably passed in arriving at the salon. 
It frequently happens that the table is only laid a few minutes 
before the dinner is served. That ceremony, therefore, which 
Consumes hours in an English house, and occupies the time of 
so many persons, is effected with a sort of magical celerity in 
France. But where all is for mere use, and nothing for dis- 
play, time and trouble must be necessarily spared. There are 
no showy sideboards, no rich buffets, in the French dining- 
room ; and though the table service is always of silver, vet in 
the first houses, ornamental plate, and articles not immediately 
necessary to the accommodation of the guest, are nearly un- 
knot n. 

As there is rarely head or foot to a French dinner table, the 
hosts generally occupy the centre. The removes are confined 
to the middle of the table: there are usually two short courses, 
with a dessert, and a number of stimulating hors d'eeuvres [side- 
dishes], almost unknown in the economy of an r nglish table. 
To those accustomed to *< raisonner principes sucres" [to reason 
on sugared principles], the French dessert will be found, in the 
language of Mons. de la Reyniere, « de parler a Vdme % ct surtout 
aux yeux" [to speak to the soul, and above all to the eyes]. A 
thin light Burgundy is the diluting beverage, which holds the 
place of our malt liquor; and the superior wines are not drunk 
till after the first course, when the domestics* serve them round. 
Cape wine or Malmsey are taken with the dessert. The art of 
cookery is supposed to have long reached its utmost point of 
perfection in France. It is a science, which all have studied, 
which all understand, but which it has been long deemed man- 



188 PARIS. 

vais ton [vulgar] to expatiate upon, or discuss. All such conver- 
sations are now reputed to smell of the revolutionary times, when 
the most roturier [plebeian] persons, raised (Km the shop to the 
palace, piqued themselves on the friandise [dainties] of a table, 
to which they had hitherto been strangers ; and were proud to 
display their superiority over the *< cuisine bourgeoise" [city 
kitchen], by discussing cbtelettes a la Maintenon, or deriding 
on the merits of dishes, once confined to the menus [bills of fare] 
of aristocratic tables. 

The skill and science, which our young men of fashion display 
at table, who wish to found a reputation by living en garqon [as 
bachelors], have descended in France to the gar^ons, or waiters 
at the restaurateurs; and I remember a certain La Croix.* who 
occasionally attended our cabinet particulier [private room], at 
Le Jacques\ whose oracular judgments on the dishes or wines 
he wished to recommend, were equally amusing and instructive; 
and in England would entitle him to a professorship, should the 
*art ever be raised to the dignity of a science. 

At the end of the dessert, every one rises from table; and cof- 
fee (such as Mahomet might have drunk, to dream himself into 
his third keaveii) 9 with liqueurs pures et faetices, [pure and facti- 
tious cordials,] are ready prepared on a stationary table in a cor- 
ner of the saloon. This table universally exhibits an English tea- 
equipage, designed equally for ornament and for use; and the 
silver tea urn and tea an\(\y are rarely omitted. A conversation of 
a petit quart d-Jwure [short quarter of an hour] concludes the 
dinner engagement: the carriages and cabriolets draw up; eve- 
ry one pursues the pleasures and amusements of the evening as 
he thinks proper; and no one remains where lie dines, except by 
particular invitation, or that it happens to be the soiree of the 
lady of the house. 

It has occasionally happened, that our dinner invitation has in- 
cluded an arrangement for a "promenade en voiture;" [an air- 
ins: in the carriages,] and in the fine evenings of a French sum- 
mer, nothing can he more delicious than these after-dinner drives, 
taken by a large party, with which the intemperance of the men 

* Asking La Croix's opinion, upon the choice of some liqueurs we wished 
to purchase, he threw himself into the attitude of a declaimer at the Institute, 
and talked in terms equally scientific. — "Tenez, Madame; on doit consiile'rcr 
les liqueurs sous deux rupf>orts, pures et faetices. Par example^ ' Le Henri Qua- 
tre * et * le par fait amour' sont faetices, le curacoa et le kirsh-wnsser sont pines'" 
[Well, Madam; these cordiais mus. be considered under two separate cha- 
racters, pure and factitious. For instance, ' Tht Henry the Fourth,' and 'The 
Perfect Love' arc factitious, the Curacoa and the Kirsh-wasser are pure], Stc. 
8cc This dissertation of La Croix, which I took down verbatim, is almost 
equal to the treatise on " La moutarde considcree philosophiquevient ,> [Mustard 
considered philosophically.] 



SOCIETY, *gg 

never interferes ; and to which pleasure, health, and recreation, 
equally contribute. 

One of these pleasant promenades, in which I was a party, 
had for its object the lovely grounds and gardens of Mousseaux; 
situate at the extremity of Paris, near the faubourg du Roule. 
We broke up from dinner at seven o'clock, mounted our carri- 
ages, and in half an hour were set down at the place of our desti- 
nation, the once celebrated "petite maison" of the late duke of 
^Orleans, the temple of his dissipated orgies, and of his political 
intrigues. The house or rather the pavilion, is of Grecian archi- 
tecture, correct and chaste, even to coldness and uniformity ; but 
still elegant. The "jardins Anglais," [English garden,] once 
known as " Les folies de Chartres," [the follies of Chartres,] 
notwithstanding the occasional conceits of gothic ruins and attic 
temples, cascades without water, and Alpine bridges without pre- 
cipices, are stiil beautiful, luxuriant, and noble ; and the place, 
the company, the weather, the climate, all considered, few hours 
in my life have been more pleasantly enjoyed, than those passed 
amidst ( * Les folies de Chartres." The moon had risen on our 
rambles, before we returned to the hotel, from which we had set 
out. We found the soiree of Madame de C already assem- 
bled, and English tea at midnight concluded our very agreeable 
dinner party, with its "promenade en voiture."j 

The French soiree is literally an evening aP home. Almost 
every woman of condition in Paris has a soiree once or twice a 
week. Some ladies are « at home" every night, or rarely go out 
except to the court, to the opera, or the theatres,:): During the 
soiree, visits are received and paid, as on other evenings; for the 
evening is the usual time for paying morning visits in France; 
and once admitted to their enjoyment, no further invitation is 
necessary. These little assemblies, given without expense, and 
resorted to without form, present the state of Parisian society 

* Mousseaux, or, as it is now spelled Mouceaux, under the imperial regi- 
me was a maison de plaisance of the arcki-chancelier de V Empire. £villa of the 
arch-chancellor of the empire.] I know not to whom it now belongs, but its- 
gardens are opened to the public. 

f The late hours of neiv France are much reprobated by the primitive old 
gentry, who exclaim against dinners at half after five, or six o'clock, and 
who believe that at last " les Parisiens, d force de retarder Vheure de diner, 
Jiniraient par ne diner quele lendemain" {[The Parisians are constantly making; 
the dinner hour later and later, till in the end they will not dine till the next 
day.] 

* We had above twenty houses open to us, on different nights in the week, 
during our residence in Paris, where we were always sure of being graciously 
deceived, and of finding good society. 



4Q0 v SOCIETY. 

in its most favourable aspect. Neither vanity nor ostentation 
interfere with their ease and simplicity ; there is no gambling, 
no full dress; the women go in demi-toiiette ; and as in Paris, il- 
lumination is extremely cheap and the apartments always well 
lighted, the whole additional expense of the sortie is included 
in tea, or some very slight refreshment, served a little before 
midnight. Society is therefore not a point of competition, but a 
source of genuine enjoyment. It never leads to ruinous extrava- 
gance; it is supported by no newspaper eulogies; it awakens no 
rivalry, and gives no heart-burnings; and the lady, who enter- 
tains, does not estimate the pleasure of her party by the num- 
ber of titles that fill her rooms, nor by the expensive rarities 
that crowd her supper-table; for wit, pleasantry, and good con- 
versation hold an uniform ascendant over peers, and pine-ap- 
ples, chalked floors, and peas at a guinea per quart! 

The weekly soiree, at some of the great houses in Paris, 
amounts to what is termed a grande-reunion, or large assembly; 
in which the coquettish demi-toilette gives place to full dress; and 
the society assumes more of the bustle and brilliancy of an Eng- 
lish rout. A few days after our arrival in Paris a card of invi- 
tation from the English ambassadress, and another from the 
princesse Louise de la Trimouille, for the same evening, afforded 
me an opportunity (as I went to both) of comparing the assem- 
blies of the two nations. We passed through long files of Eng- 
lish carriages, which filled the Rue St. Honore, in approaching 
the hotel of the English embassy: the halls and anti-rooms of 
that magnificent hotel were filled with domestics, in the splendid 
liveries of the Stuart family. Lady Elizabeth Stuart stood at the 
door of the first saloon, to receive her multitudinous congress, 
which poured forward in endless succession, from all nations, but 
chiefly from England, Ireland, and Scotland : and her ladyship 
went through the laborious task of reception (in all the routine 
of a London assembly), with as much grace and courtesy, as if 
weariness and exhaustion did not inevitably attend upon such an 
exertion. Faces with which I had long been familiar, in the cir- 
cles of London; faces, that I thought I had left behind me in Ire- 
land, presented themselves on every side. All was the buz, bustle, 
and motion of an English rout. Every one stared, every one 
talked, and nobody listened. The refreshments were abundant, 
exquisite, and various; and an elegant supper was prepared to 
follow the consumption of orgeates, ices, and ponche glacSe. 
[iced-punch.] Without waiting, however, to partake of this su- 
pererogation of hospitality, we passed on at an early hour from 
the hotel of the British embassy, to the hotel de la Trimouille. 



SOCIETY. 2.9 1 

The hotel, de la Trimouille is situate in the centre of the Rue 
Bourbon, as it ought to be; for the names have not often been 
disunited. 

The Rue Bourbon is a grand, gloomy Patrician street; always 
the residence of the ancient nobility of France, whose venerable 
hotels still frown, on either side, like monuments of past gran- 
deur. Scarcely a sound disturbed its silence, as we entered, and 
the rsverberes [reverbrating lamps,] but feebly lighted, the high 
dark walls of the spacious courts which shut in from vulgar 
view the residence of hereditary grandeur. 

One single rap announced the arrival of the guests; and the 
poriecochere [carriage-entrance] without any visible agency, slow- 
ly opened, as if governed by the wheel of a convent gate. On ei- 
ther side of the court, carriages and cabriolets were sheltered 
in the remise, [coach house] or were drawn up in close file; and 
our own servant conducted us, through the silent lofty hall, up 
the broad stone stairs to the anti-room, where, consigning our 
persons and names to the guardianship of the maitre d'hotel, he 
took his own seat in an arm chair, by the stove. We followed our 
guide, as he flung open les grands battans, [folding doors,] in 
proceeding through the suite of rooms. 

AH the apartments were splendidly lighted : we found the bil- 
liard-room occupied by players, or by lookers-on at the game, 
which in France is played so well, and so generally, by both 
sexes. "We passed on to the grand saloon, and found a large cir- 
cle, all seated; all conversing, and all animated, yet all at rest. 
A few men only stood in groups, or, in the French phrase, en 
petlts peloions. [in little knots.] Some leaned over the backs of 
the ladies' chairs, with whom they were talking. In passing on 
to the superb chambre a coucher, [bed-chambers,] I observed 
Mons. Fieve, the author of the charming novel of the « Dot de 
Suzette" [Suzette's dowry] receiving the compliments of a little 
circle, on his new political tracts; and Monsieur de Chateau- 
briand, whom, having already seen at the opening of the Insti- 
tute, I instantly recognized, by his folded arms, abstracted look, 
and air of Arabia deserta. Withdrawn from the crowd, in soli- 
tary magnificence, he was silently receiving the homage of some 
dowager-w^ras; while he, who "saluted" every tree, river, and 
rock, from Paris to Jerusalem, seemed, in society, to hail nothing 
but his own importance. 

We found the Princesse de la Trimouille, not bustling through 
her rooms in endless genuflexions, nor stationed at the entrance- 
door, the wearied sentinel of her own exhausting pleasures, but 
quietly lounging in a fautcuil, [easy chair,] in her superb bed- 



192 



SOCIETY 



rootii,^ the sanctum-sanctorum of all splendour, taste, and ele- 
gance, in the suite of French apartments. She was looking on 
at a game of picquet, played by two venerable dukes, covered 
with all the insignia of their rank; and this was almost the only 
card-table I saw, at any of the reunions, or soirees, which I fre- 
quented, during my residence in France. 

The manner in which a French woman receives her female 
guests is extremely courteous and respectful, a little tinctured 
with formality, but marked by every feature of politeness and of 
attention. The reception of the male guests is, generally speak- 
ing, at once, extremely fascinating, and yet sufficiently dignified. 
She never rises from her seat: she receives their profound bow 
with a smile, a nod, a "hon soir," or "ban jour" bra "comment 
va-t-il;" ["good evening,*' or, "good day," or a "how do you 
do;"] or some little mark of distinction, a tap of the fan, a hand 
to kiss, or an expression of pleasant surprise at their unexpected 
appearance. All this however is air and look; it is "something, 
nothing:" it is quite indescribable, as it is undefinable; and it 
would be presumption to attempt it. 

De la Trimouiile! Who that knows any thing of the history 
of France, could for the first time be in company with the re- 
presentative of that illustrious family, without feeling some quick- 
ening throbs of the heart? All that is dignified in the history of 
the country is associated with the name. The most powerful 
among the provencal nobility, the La Trimouilles, governed the 
Charles's, opposed the Louis's, and assisted to place the founder 
of the house of Bourbon on the throne of France. They suffer- 
ed martyrdom in its cause, on the revolutionary scaffold, and 
they now rally round the throne of the family, they have so long 
fought and died to support. The Trimouilles have, indeed, done 
more for the house of Bourbon, than the house of Bourbon could 
do for the Trimouilics.f 



* Nothing can exceed the splendour and taste of some of the chambres d 
covchcr, in the private hotels of Paris. The walls are usually draped with rich 
silk or satin, fastened and decorated with gold or silver ornaments. The cou- 
rrr.-pled, or counterpane of the bed, which stands in an alcove, is frequently 
of white satin, richly embroidered, and ti'immed with Brussels luce. 

■}■ Many of the families of the French nobility looked upon themselves as 
more ancient than the reigning 1 dynasties even in the earlier ages. " Qui vous 
a, fait Cftnte?" [Who made you a count ?] asked Hugh Capet, haughtily, of 
the Comte de Perigord. " Ceux, qui vous out fait, roi," [The same who made 

.you a king-,] was the bold reply. Charles VII. weary of the role of Georges 

Ltle la Trimouiile, suffered him to be arrested and imprisoned by his enemy, 

I- he con notable de Lorraine. 

t It was in reference to the conduct of Louis de la Trimouiile, who took 
Louis XII. prisoner at the battle of St. Aubin, that that wise and excellent 



SOCIETY im 

The Prince Louis, the only surviving representative of his ii- 
1 lustrious family, has all that distinction of person and air, which 
indicates birth and high breeding, and is one of three of the 
handsomest brothers that France ever saw united in one cause. 

The talents and acquirements of the Princesse de la Trimou- 
ille give her a very decided influence in the circle and party in 
which she moves; and I observed, that literature and politics 
were the leading topics of conversation, in her elegant and re- 
fined re-unions. 

The bal-pdre, [drop bell,] a most frequent style of entertain- 
ment during the winter season (which season, par parentkese, 
[by the bye] is literally celebrated during the winter, and never 
put off till summer or autumn,') is a combination of youth, plea- 
sure, and gaiety, exquisite dancing to exquisite music, splendid 
dressing, and light collations; while little quadrille parties, sud- 
denly struck up to the harp and piano-forte, are not unusual in 
families, where there are many young people, though infinitely 
less frequent, than such accidental breaks on the card-parties of 
small English circles. All the modes of society in Paris are sim- 
ple, inexpensive, rational, and refined ; but they are, generally 
speaking, less gay, less artificial, and perhaps, at once, more 
formal, and more easy, than the usual arrangements of society 
in Great Britain. Its shades, indeed, are infinite, and vary ac- 
cording to the rank, age, party, and means of the entertainers. 
Its variety, however, is not its least charm; and the characters 
of rank, talent, and celebrity, both native and foreign, which 
are met with in its countless circles, must always render them 
curious, interesting, and attractive to the stranger, who, without 
bias or prejudice seeks, in visiting a foreign land, to compare its 
habits and manners with his own; and who, candid enough to 
grant to each nation its own peculiar merit, is still willing to 
cherish that natural and wise preference, leading to the gra- 
cious conviction, that 

" The first, best country ever is at home." 

monarch observed, after he ascended the throne, " Le Roi de France ne venge 
pas les quirelles du Due d'OrMans." [The king- of France does not revenge the 
quarrels of the duke of Orleans.] The Due de la Trimouille was one of the 
secret chiefs of the Hug-onot party, whose demands became so exorbitant on 
the gratitude of the king-. The influence, spirit, and power of this family ap 
pear indeed throuprh every pag"e of the history of France. The late Prince de 
la Trimouille, brother to the present prince, was guillotined in the early part 
{>f the revolution. 

END OF PART I. 



FRANCE. 



BOOK V 

Paris. 



; Des Champs Elysiens ; le pompeux rivage, 
De palais, de javelins^ de prodiges borde, 
Combien vous m'enchantiez !" Voi.TATTtr : 



Boulevards Italiens.< — General architectural arrangement of Paris. 
— Banks of the Seine. — •The Hotel Bourbon. — The Louvre. — The 
Gallery — Modem French artists. — The Place de Carrousel. — - 
The Thuilleries. — The Sorbonne. — The Pantheon. — BibliothSque 
du Pantheon. — The Luxembourg. — Bibliotheque du Roi. — De 
Maaarin. — Librarians. — The Gobelins. — The shop-signs.'— 'Pri- 
vate hotels. — Historical scites. — Hotel de Beaumarchais. — Hotel 
de la Regnierc.' — >Mmanach des Gourmands. — Hotel de Someriva, 
*- -+Works of Canova, — Hotel de Craufurd. — Gallery of the Beau- 
ties of Louis XlVWs day. — Hotel Borghese. — Hotel and Collec- 
tion of Baron Denon, 

MY first flhpressions of Paris, as a great city, were re- 
ceived from my entering it by the Boulevards Italiens. The rain, 
which had fallen in torrents as we passed the Barriere de C lie hi, 
suddenly dispersed, as we reached the Boulevards ; and the 
bright blue skies of spring, and of France, lent their cloudless 
lustre to a scene, so unparalleled in my experience, that some 
one of the rich fantastic cities of Arabian fable seemed conjured 
up, to cheat the imagination. The « Chronicles of the 8usanians 9 
the ancient ICings o/» Persia," could have afforded no gayer scite 
for the scenes of Scheherazade's invention, and one must have 
been, like her own •» king of the Black Islands, half marble," 
not to have yielded up the senses unresistingly to impressions so 
new, and to images so fanciful. 

PART II. b 



g PARIS. 

The splendid avenue of tlie Boulevards Italiens, so worthy the 
capital o f a great nation, once a desert, inhabited by brigands 
and banditti, is now lined with stately hotels, gardens, and 
flowery teivaces, mingled with structures the most grotesque, 
and edifices tne most picturesque ; — the Chinese bath, the Turk- 
ish cafe, the virandas of an Hindu pavilion, and the minarets of 
an Eastern kiosk, alternately glitter through double rows of 
noble trees, which line their spacious scite, and which, gemmed 
with beams and rain-drops, were just bursting into verdure, as 
I passed for the first time under their shade. It was early in 
the evening, the moment when, in Paris, the idle and the labo- 
rious, the rich and the poor, alike forego ennui and work, and 
all unite in a pursuit, there seldom frustrated or fruitless,— £/*e 
pursuit of pleasure. 

The gay multitude, which a spring shower had dispersed in 
search of temporary shelter, had just rushed forth in an exhila- 
ration of spirits, which a little contre-tems [disappointment] rather 
feeds than extinguishes, in the French temperament. The bou- 
quetiSres [nosegay women] were again presenting their violets 
and lily of the valley to the pretty grisettes [tradesmen's daugh- 
ters], who were tottering along with Chinese steps, and Chinese 
feet, not unconscious of being ** Men chausSes" [not unconscious 
of neat shoes and stockings], nor wholly unmindful of the glasses 
pointed from the virandas of Tortoni's or Hardy's cafes. — The 
petits-marchands [petty shop-keepers] were again displaying their 
gay sheds, and brilliant baskets, lined with gems and jewels, 
« a vingt six sous, au juste" [twenty-six sous, exactly].— .The 
reading-rooms, reinforced by the shower, displayed in their 
windows heads of every timbre, aching over the politics of Eu- 
rope, or heating over pamphlets of domestic recrimination. 

Bobeche had again taken his station on his deserted stage, and 
Galimafree** with his grave fatuity, was exciting bursts of mer- 
riment" in his fresh-gathered audience. All seemed gaiety, life, 
and intelligence, and a more animated scene cpuld not perhaps 
be found in the capital of any country in Europe, to greet the 
eye of the newly-arrived stranger, or to impress him with a 
more favourable opinion of the prosperity and native hilarity of 
its people. Were these spacious and beautiful boulevards, which 
surround Paris, a fair specimen of the capital they adorn, it 

* Bobeche and Galimafvc'e are two celebrated Gillcs, or buffoons, who exhi 
bit every evening' on ihe boulevards, and are the representatives of those 
JSaladins, who were anciently brought by the police, t9 exhibit on these boule- 
vards, in order to draw the population of Paris to that quarter, and thus dis- 
perse the malefactors and brigaiids, who were wont to take shelter there. The 
French Gilfes are frequently excellent low comedians — Voltaire calls the 
cloims of Shakespeare •« Gillcs" — and Touchstone himself is sometimes rivalled 
in wit and humour, by these extemporising buffos. 



PARIS. 3 

would indeed be the proud city, " that lifteth her head on high, 
and saith, I am, and there is none other like unto me." 

But it is far otherwise ; and the boulevards, forming a splen- 
did belt round the narrow streets of Paris, are the girdle of Ve- 
nus on- a mortal form. There are peculiar scites (such as the 
whole line of quais) [quays] unrivalled, perhaps, in beauty, in- 
terest, and magnificence, in any other metropolis; — but, taken 
as a whole, Paris wants that uniformity, that propriety, if I may 
use the expression, which should characterise a great capital. 
It seems rather a cluster of irregular towns, than one great en- 
tire whole. Every quartier is a distinct district. The quartier 
of the Luxembourg has quite the air of a country village, group- 
ed round the castle of its seigneur ; and the whole of the faux- 
bourg St. Germain appears like some remote and antiquated 
town, a thousand leagues distant from the gay modern city of 
the ChaussSe d'Jlntin. The narrowness of the greater part of 
the streets is an " original sin" beyond redemption ; and the 
height of the houses, all of hewn stone, all spacious, all well- 
built, throws a depth of shadow, which adds to their gloom. 

It was among the best works of the late Ruler of France, that 
he spared neither money, labour, nor talent, in the improvement 
and beautifying of the capital ; and the inhabitants, all unani- 
mous on this point of his conduct, indicate, with grateful recol- 
lections, the avenues lie has opened, the spaces he has cleared, 
the noble streets he had begun, the public buildings he had found- 
ed, the markets he had built, the fountains he had erected, the 
great sources of health and accommodation he had opened on 
every side, for the benefit of the citizens of Paris — When they 
are asked, where were his own palaces, his Marleijs, his Baga- 
telles, his Trianons, and Belles-xwes, they point to a baby-house 
of wood and canvas, raised for his son, in the gardens of the 
Thuilleries, and talk of the plan of a future palace, for the king 
of Rome. 

The enormous size of the houses, in Paris, is an ancient and 
original error, in its architectural arrangements, arising out of 
modes and institutions, which kneaded their evil leaven through 
every particle of the great mass, and substituted power, influ- 
ence, and ostentation, for rights, privileges, and comforts. A 
great hotel was, in former times, the indispensible appanage of 
aristocratic pride ; and the hotel was usually so much too great 
for its noble owner, that, while their names shone, in golden 
letters, over the porte-cochere [great gate], they had frequently 
neither domestics to occupy its apartments, nor furniture to fill 
them. 

Thus, ignoble lodgers were taken in, to breathe under the 
3ame roof with the inheritors of « six quarterings," and beds 



£ PARIS. 

and tapestry were carried back and forward, from the chateau 
in the remote province, to the hotel in the capital : while the 
"fier baron" [lofty baron], or noble due et pair [noble duke and 
peer], travelled like a Tartar chief, or Gipsey captain, with his 
household furniture, his bag and baggage in his suite. It is 
curious to see the rich and noble Madame de Sevigne uneasy at 
not being able to let her lodgings, the very rooms occupied by 
that dear daughter so fondly adored — " Celogis, (as she herself 
savs) qui m 9 a fait iant songer d vous ; ce logis que tout le mondc 
vient voir, que tout le monde admire ; et que personne ne veut 
louerf 99 * [These apartments which made me so often think of 
you; these apartments which every body comes to see, and 
which every body admires; and which nobody will hire]. 

In another place, she advises Madame de Grignan not to 
bring up her beds and tapestry from the remote province, where 
her husband was governor, at a distance of many hundred miles ; 
not, however, that she was herself very well able to accommo- 
date her daughter, for she had only one bed, according to her 
own confession. Still the hotel de Carnavalet, (which even at 
this moment attests its former grandeur) to which Madame de 
Grignan was about to carry her beds and tapestry, was cele- 
brated for its sculptures, by Gougeon ; its facade [front], by 
Ducereau, and by Mansard ; and its plafonds [ceilings], painted 
hy the first masters of the day. Such was the mixture of show 
and splendor with every species of discomfort, and the absence 
of all accommodations, the sure indices of the ostentation and 
meanness of a proud and poor nobility. 

The custom of letting out apartments, even in the hotels of the 
first nobility in France, is common at this day. — A shoemaker 
may lodge au sixieme [sixth floor] with a prince ; and i have seen, 
myself, the high-born and illustrious mistress of a splendid hotel, 
in the Rue St. Honore, get into the same carriage with her 
English-commoner-lodger, and both drive together to court. 

Oli ! who, that " has ever felt the thrilling melody 99 of that little 
English word « Home, 9 ' and has known and felt its endearing 
signification, would willingly share it with strangers and passing 
sojourners ? Who would not prefer the little door that shuts in 
all that is dearest, and closes on none beside, to the grande porte- 
cochere [great gates] of a more capacious structure, the caravan- 
sartj of fortuitous guests ? Who would not prefer the small owx 
exclusive house, the 

" Casa-mia, piccolina, che sia" 

to all the "pomp and circumstance" of the disproportioned 
structure, to be shared with those, one does not, or, still worse, 
with those one would not know ? 

* Letter LII. YoL 1. 



PARIS. 5 

The French nobility, however, in former times, occasionally 
made a nobler use of their unoccupied apartments, than in hir- 
ing them out to strangers : for they frequently accommodated 
indigent talent with a home ; and the entresols [little low rooms 
between two floors] were occupied by the La Fontaines and Mar- 
montels, who were also the frequent guests at the tables of the 
La Sablieres and the Geoffrins.* 

There is not, perhaps, in the world, so imposing a scene, both 
for architectural beauty, and for historic recollections, as that 
through which the full swelling stream of the Seine flows, from 
the Pont Neuf, to the Pont de Jena; the one With its reversed 
statue of Henry IV., now slowly reinstating on its long-fallen 
pedestal, where misery once came to shed her tears, and loyalty 
to offer her devotions ;j the other marking a very different pe- 
riod in European history, and daily parting with its imperial 
eagles. It was thus I saw them both in the same hour. 

To the right of the Seine rise along its banks, in splendid suc- 
cession, the ancient and beautiful Louvre, the venerable palace of 
the Thuilleries. its luxuriant gardens and spacious terrace, and 
the rich groves of the Champs Elysees [Elysian Fields], termina- 
ting at the br«,w of Chaillot and of Passy, which swell into am- 
phitheatres, and close, by their imposing elevation, the whole 
magnificent scene. On the left the Palais de fyuatre Nations 
[Palace of the Four Nations], the Palais Bourbon, and a long suite 
of splendid hotels, whose lovely gardens and plantations of roses 
sweep down to the river, have each their specific and opposite 
interest. The Palais Bourbon, one of the most splendid palaces 
in Europe, was built by Louis XIV. for his natural daughter, 
the Princesse de Conde, after the design of Girardin. 

Although the origin of its foundation is now forgotten, the 
Hotel de Bourbon, or Palais du Corps Legislatif [Palace of the 
LegislativeBody], what ever name it may bear, must always be a 
monument of interest, and an object of admiration. Its Corin- 
thian portico, its Grecian peristyle, its spacious galleries, its 
elegant pavilions, its vestibules, its colonnades, its theatre, its 
gardens still remain, under different names or various combina- 
tions ; (for it has gone through many changes, and been adapted 
to many purposes, since it was first devoted to royal enjoyment 
and princely pleasures.) Its state bed-room, with its golden 
tapestry ; — its salle de billards [billiard room], with its verdant 

* Marmontel, however, paid for his lodging's at Madame Geoffrin's. — Though 
men of letters were frequently lodged gratuitously by the great, this custom 
made a part of their disgraceful dependance. 

f From the time of the death of the « Grand Dauphin" the inhabitants of 
Paris were wont to carry their tears and their complaints to the foot of the 
statue of Henry /p.— What an eulogium I 






£ PARIS. 

treillage [trellis], and its nymphs, crowned with flowers, offering' 
the rules of the game ; its celebrated salle amanger [eating-room], 
with its painted arcades, reflecting from a hundred mirrors its 
fairy splendors ; — its far-famed boudoir, with its unrivalled par- 
quets de marqueterie [inlaid floor], all have inclosed far different 
groups, and echoed to far different sounds, since the gallant Con- 
des and Bourbons first trod the golden maze of pleasure in this 
temple, so appropriate to her orgies. It was here the council of 
five hundred held their rude republican assemblies. Here, Carnot 
and La Fayette raised their last voice in the cause of consti- 
tutional principles ; and here the fate of Bonaparte was finally 
decided. The Palais Bourbon, long named the Palais du Corps 
Legislatif, has again resumed its original appellation ; and the 
venerable Prince de Conde, after an exile of twenty-five years, 
again holds his court, under the golden domes of his illustrious 
ancestors.* 

Among the beautiful hotels, which form a line with the Palais 
Bourbon, the elegant residence of the late Marshal Ney is con- 
spicuous. It was, at least, always so to me, as I passed it, from 
its peculiar air of uninhabited loneliness. The closed shutters 
of its lofty windows, and grass-grown pathway of its blooming 
gardens, then rich in full-blown plantations of roses, were strong 
and melancholy remembrancers. 

It has been asserted by Mons. Le Breton, that France, more 
than any other nation in Europe, participates in the glory re- 
flected from architectural monuments. It would be difficult to 
meet this sweeping assertion, backed by so high an authority, 
with the very incompetent knowledge of the art, which is brought 
to this work. But as far as my own observation went, I saw 
nothing in France comparable to the specimens of Saxon and 
Gothic architecture, to be found in almost every part of England. 
The observation of Heurtier, that a taste for architecture pre- 
vailed in France, long before the revival of that art in the rest 
of Europe, seems invalidated by the cathedral of Amiens, which 
is reckoned one of their finest churches, but which was built by 

* The Prince de Conde, though he has reached a term of life beyond the 
ordinary course of human existence, has, I am told, preserved much of the 
" air de (Seigneur* and manners of the old school of gallantry, and he is parti- 
cularly polite to the ladies. His senses, however, do not keep pace with his 
susceptibility. Monsieur Talleyrand being presented to him, his Highness 
constantly addressed him as JMonsieur le Prince de Tarente, while some of his 
gentlemen repeatedly whispered him, " JMonseignevr e'est le Prince Talleyrand." 
[My lord it is Prince Talleyrand]. — " Qu'estce qu'on me pari e done de ce chien 
de 'Talleyrand?" [Who is it talks to me of that dog T*alleyrand] asked the 
Prince, of Mons. Talleyrand himself. " JMon Prince " replied M. T. " voild deux 
ana quejene connais plus cet Iiomme Id." [Prince, for the last two years I have 
not known that man]. — This little incident was said to have occurred while I 
was in Paris, and I give it as an anecdote de salon. 



the English ; and every other great religious structure I saw, 
Notre Dame and St. Denis included, is infinitely inferior, in 
point of grandeur, beauty, workmanship, and extent, to Can- 
terbury, York-Minster, or Westminster xibbey. Of pure Grecian 
architecture, the specimens in France are few and inferior, both 
in magnitude and execution ; while the mixed order, which pre- 
vails over their few public and numerous royal edifices, seemed 
to me to be sufficiently distinct and specific to take its place with 
the other five, and to merit the name, of French-Grecian archi- 
tecture. It may be said to resemble the French-Grecian drama, 
which presents the incongruity of modern manners blended .with 
antique story, and the observance of the Aristotelian severities, 
with an adherence to national peculiarities. France has not, 
hitherto, shown herself the land of the sublime; she has never 
produced a Milton, nor possessed a Parthenon : and her highest 
effort, in the epic of poetry or architecture, is exhibited in the 
coldest poem, and the most ponderous structure, that modern 
times have produced, the " Henriade" of Voltaire, and the Palace 
of Versailles. 

"Oules Rois furent condamne*s a la magnificence." 
[Where the kings -were condemned to magnificence, .] 

Of that mixed architecture, which may be accounted truly and 
purely French, the Louvre is a perfect and beautiful specimen. 
Neither grand nor simple, it has every other excellence. Rich, 
varied, and elegant in its decorations, at once massive and orna- 
mented, solid and light, it appeared to me such a structure, as the 
wild fantastic imagination of Ariosto might have originated for 
one of his own fairy palaces, the magical temple of some enchant- 
ing Armida.* The Louvre is one of those objects in art, which 
pleases without any classical authority for pleasing. It is a splen- 
did variety, out of all ordinary classification, and the lively emo- 
tions of admiration it excites, are certainly not referable to its 
observance of any rule, or its conformity to any known model. 

Philippe de Lorme, and Pierre Lescot threw a brilliant lustre 
over the architectural genius of France, when, in the early part 
of the sixteenth century, they sketched those elegant and original 

* To this melange [medley] the severe taste of Voltaire objects, in his well- 
known stanzas on the Louvre. 

" Sous quels debris honteux, sous* quel amas rustique 

On laisse ensevelir ces chefs d'oeuvres divins ! 
Quel barbare a meie" la bassesse Gothique 

A toute la grandeur des Grecs et des Romains /" 
[Under what shameful rubbish, under how rude a pile, have these divine 
masterpieces been burried : What barbarous taste has mingled the paltry 
Gothic with all the grandeur of the Greeks and Romans]. 



8 PARIS. 

designs, which produced a new Louvre on the scite of the ancient 
edifice. Henry II., Charles IX., and Henry IV., all contributed 
to the beauty and splendor of this royal residence, and Louis XIV. 
was the first sovereign of France, who ventured to remove the 
seat of government from the capital of the kingdom, and perma- 
nently to desert the venerable Louvre, 

" Le Palais pompeux, dont la France s'honore," 
[That pompous palace, the boast of France,'] 

(the dwelling of the Valois and the Bourbons,) for the pestilen- 
tial atmosphere of the modern Versailles. 

The history of the Louvre, a recapitulation of the scenes 
which have occurred in its chambers, would embrace some of the 
most curious facts in the history of France, and furnish the tra- 
gic muse with incidents beyond her own high-wrought concep- 
tions. It was in the midnight councils of the Louvre, that an 
event was planned, in cool, calculating, murderous policy, which 
has thrown a stain upon Catholic zeal, never to be effaced, so 
long as time shall perpetuate the deed ; which has given the 
blasted name of its sanguinary perpetrators to eternal ignominy, 
has painted religious fanaticism in its own true colours, and ex- 
hibited the armed power of omnipotent despotism, willing, and 
executing, in a breath, vengeance and massacre, in its darkest 
form. It was in the secret chambers of the Louvre, that Catha- 
rine de Medicis and her son Charles IX. planned the murder of 
all the Hugonots, in the capital and towns of France, a massa- 
cre projected and executed at the same moment, and with the 
same merciless ferocity and unsparing cruelty, in the most remote, 
quarters of the realm. The balcony still exists, from which 
Charles fired on his subjects, on the night of St. Bartholomew, 
as they hurried to and fro, in horror and consternation, aulidst 
the tolling of bells, the thunder of artillery, the shouts of the 
murderers, and the cries of the dying. The apartment is still 
visible, where the assassin Mauri vert attempted the life of the 
brave de Coligny : and the room is still to be seen, from which 
the immortal Henry IV. was dragged from the arms of his beau- 
tiful bride to the feet of the King, to hear the dreadful alterna- 
tive pronounced in the midst of murderers and zealots — « Or 
."la messe, ou JjA mort" [Either mass, or death], — Of unlimited 
power, and religious fanaticism, the massacre of St. Bartholo- 
mew was the work, result and triumph. 

The Louvre, since the days of Francis I. the patron of all 
that was refined and liberal, lias not only been the sanctuary of 
the arts and sciences, but the focus of letters. It was here the 
French academy hefd the most far-famed of its sittings, whe. 



PARIS. g 

the (;'Alemberts,the Diderots,the Buffons,the Voltaires, theMar- 
montels, were among its members ; and here all the most cele- 
brated artists in France were gratuitously lodged, from the time 
of Henry IV. until the late Emperor dislodged them,* in order 
to enlarge and repair the edifice, for the reception of his tri- 
butary kings ! He had already named particular apartments, in 
his other palaces, Salle des Rois [Saloon of the Kings], in analogy 
with the Salle des Marechaux, and Salle des Pages [Saloon of the 
Marshals, and Saloon of the Pages]; but the Lou? re was de- 
stined to be the residence of those sovereigns, whose peculiar po- 
sition with respect to the French government obliged them, at 
any time, to visit the modern Rorae,f — 

" Where menial Kings ran cow'ring up and down." 

The Louvre had always been an object of admiration and at- 
tention to Buonaparte, during the early part of his consulship: 
its avenues, obstructed by miserable and noisome streets; and 
the sculptures of Gougeon, the devices and designs of de Lorme, 
L'Escot, and Perault, defaced or obscured by time and neglect, 
had not escaped his notice. He saw them, 

" Though sullied and dishonored, still divine," 

and he resolved on restoring the building to its original splendor. 
The arts were rallied round their own temple, to revive its glories. 
By the removal of many wretched buildings, the palace was in- 
sulated, and its architectural beauties brought into view ; repair 
and improvement went hand in hand ; and the Louvre is at this 
moment one of the most imposing and splendid, if not the most 
perfect structure, that the genius of sculpture and architecture 
ever produced. 

The gallery of the Louvre, 

" Qui sur tous les beaux arts a fonde sa gloire," 

presents an object of recent interest, which when I beheld it, 
absorbed all the remoter associations of historical anecdote, 

( * Napoleon assigned the Palais de Quatre Nations [Palace of the Four Na- 
tions] for the residence of the French artists, and added thirty-six of the cham- 
bers of the Sorbonne, once the dens of 300 theologians. Here young ariists of 
both sexes, in the very novitiate of their art, were comfortably lodged, and free 
of all expense. 

f The name of the architect of the superb fagade [front] of the Louvre, was 
for a long time lost to the admiration of posterity, until accident discovered, 
the MS. and original designs of Perault, and gave the name of their modest 
author 10 immortality. 

PART II. C 



10 PARIS. 

which connect this palace with the epochs of the country .. — Com- 
menced by Charles IX., it was finished by Louis XIV., who 
also erected the beautiful faqade, the chef-d'oeuvre of the age in 
which it was raised. 

I visited this celebrated gallery, when its walls had been de- 
spoiled of those treasures, which, consecrated by the hallowed 
touch of genius, had escaped uninjured through the course of 
ages ; and which by that law, which has disposed of empires 
and of nations, from time immemorial, by the law of conquest, 
had become the well-earned spoils of France. I, who had never 
seen this gallery in the day of its greatest glory, I missed no- 
thing — I had never before beheld so great a covered space. The 
brilliant vista, formed by its length, which seems to lose its 
point of termination in the mists of distance, its splendid roof, 
the exquisite sculpture and gilding of its architraves, left no 
room for reflection or regret, or for any feeling but that of sur- 
prise and admiration. 

« Vous ave% enriche le Museum de Paris de plus de cinq cents 
objects, chefs-d'ozuvres de Vancienne et de la nouvelle Italie ; et quHl 
afallu trente siecles pour produire" [You have enriched the Mu- 
seum of Paris with more than five hundered objects, master-pieces 
of ancient and of modern Italy; and which it has taken thirty ages 
to produce.] Such was the flattering observation of Buonaparte 
to his soldiers, after the taking of Mantua. Of these five hundred 
chefs-d'oeuvres, the glory and boast of France, not one remains 
in the Museum of the capital. The grief, the rage of the Pari- 
sians, at the moment of resigning these treasures to foreign 
troops, have already been well and ably painted by strangers 
and travellers, who were present at the time of their departure. 
They evince a refinement, a spirit of nationality and a cultiva- 
tion, which recal all that is read and known of the people of 
Athens. 

But the transports, with which these spoils were received on 
their arriv al in Paris, when the Apollo of Bel v id ere was carried 
from the Porte aux Thuiles, to the Champ dc Mars, accompa- 
nied by the whole population of the city, amidst shouts of joy, 
and of victory, were emotions much more accordant with the 
French character, than those of despondency and indignation, 
and are best described by the Frencli themselves.- — I have heard 
them relate the installation of that perfect, model, which realises 
all that Homer had conceived of the God of light and genius, 
with an eloquence and an extasy, which for a moment made 
them forget that they no longer possessed a treasure, so dearly 
purchased, so highly prized, and so reluctantly resigned. 

When the French army, after crossing the burning deserts of 
Africa, came within view of the mighty ruins of ancient Thcbe$, 



PARIS, H 

it halted unbidden, and, by one electric and spontaneous emotion 
of awe and admiration, the soldiers clapped their hands, as if 
the conquest of Egypt was completed; as if, to behold the gi- 
gantic remains of this great city, had been the sole object of 
their long and painful labours, their glory, and their reward. 
This is one of the grandest images, which human affections have 
ever presented to the contemplation of the poet or the philoso- 
pher. France was then free and covered with glory, she was 
for a moment susceptible of the sublime, and she was worthy of 
the spoils her bravery had won, and which taste could thus feel- 
ingly appreciate.* 

Notwithstanding the great restitutions which have been made 
from the Louvre, both of pictures and of statutes, much yet re- 
mains to excite attention. The purchases of Napoleon abroad, 
and his encouragement of the arts at home, were munificent. 
And France, besides the abundance of her own productions, the 
works of her Claude Lorraine, Poussin, Le Brim, Bourdon, 
Le Sueur, Vernet, &c. &c. was peculiarly rich in her collections 
of the Flemish school, and almost monopolised exclusively the 
chef-d'mivres of Champagne and Rubens. Some of the finest 
productions of the Italians had long been in her possession ; and 
though her original treasures bear no sort of proportion to her 
lately acquired, and still more recently resigned spoils of all that 
was most precious in the arts, still much remains, even in the 
gallery of the Louvre, to extort admiration from the judgment 
of the amateur ; and to present some excellent models of study 
to the artist. 

On the several occasions that I visited the Louvre, (for, though 
it was then closed to the public, I had, through the interest of 
friends, repeated opportunities of viewing the collections which 
still remained in its gallery and saloons,) I always found a num- 
ber of young artists, of both sexes, who had obtained permission 
to finish works previously begun there, intensely occupied in 
copying from the Italian and Flemish pictures, which still hung 

* See Denon's Travels. — The progress of the French army through the 
wastes and among the ruins of Egypt, was occasionally characterised by traits 
of great grandeur and sublimity. The soldiers, under the command of Des- 
saix, spontaneously broke their order of march, and halted before Tentyra, in 
endless admiration of its grandeur. The enthusiasm, both of officers and of- 
men, was exhibited in an ever ready assistance to the artists, and the mem- 
bers of the Egyptian Institute. But history has not, perhaps, an image more 
magnificent to offer to the contemplation of the painter, or of the moralist, 
than that of Buonaparte, as yet young, as yet known only by the* glory he had 
acquired, lost in contemplation before ihe mighty pyramids of Cheops; and, 
in the presence of the enemy's army, pointing to these gigantic monuments, as 
he addressed his soldiers in words, sublime as the objects which inspired 
them — " Jillez, et pensez que, du hunt de ces monument!, quarante siecles nous ob- 
served" [Go, and think that from the height of these monuments, forty cen^ 
tunes observe us.1 



18 PARIS. 

on the walls; and with a devotedness of attention, an abstrac- 
tion, which left them apparently unconscious of the presence of 
the strangers, who passed their easels with inquisitive glances, 
or paused to watch the progress of their work. Many of these 
students were interesting young women, and some had made a 
considerable progress in the art. The practised eye of the pro- 
fessed connoisseur could alone detect the superiority of the ori- 
ginal they copied from. It was thus that lovely, young, and di- 
ligent, Madame du Barry was found in this gallery, in the days 
of her innocence, by the Comte de # * # , pursuing, from taste 
as well as from necessity, this mode of earning a subsistence. 
She little dreamed, when she abandoned this elegant and honour- 
able mode of earning an honest subsistence, that she was aban- 
doning her easal for a throne, and a scaffold. 

Painting, with its sister arts, are said to have rapidly decli- 
ned in France, under the reign of Louis XIV. Le Brun, a sort 
of painter-laureate to the king, basking in his favour, and arm- 
ed with his authority, ruled with an absolute sway over the 
school of painting, unfavourable to the freedom and interests of 
genius. The labours of his own life were chiefly confined to the 
feats and history of his royal patron, which he illustrated in a 
series of allegories. His disciples, with almost all the artists of 
the day, who had no appeal from his power, and no resource 
against his persecution, worked in his trammels, and under his 
dictation. The royal palaces were thus the school and object of 
painting in France. The king and his mistresses, its models 
and inspiration, and ceilings and portraits, entablatures and 
frizes, all reflected the same cold monotony of conception. Emi- 
nence was only to be obtained, and talent rewarded, among the 
first artists of the day, by permission from Le Brun to partici- 
pate in the great works of Versailles, or in the apartments of 
the Thuilleries; and it is there that the servile genius of TLe 
Brun himself, Mignard, Coypel, de Champagne, and Nocret 
have immortalised the egregious vanity of the king, and their 
own dependance. It is there, in colours which time has still 
spared, that, under a hundred different aspects, as the god of day, 
Louis Apollo is represented, through a series of fulsome allego- 
ries, sometimes irradiated with a glory, supreme above the uni- 
verse, which he only enlightens; sometimes imagining the pun- 
ishment of those who resist his will, in the fate of Marsyas ; and 
depicting, in the stories of Hyacinth and Niobe, his goodness 
or his power; while the enamoured Thetis and the devoted He- 
lianthus illustrate his bonnes fortunes, and successful triumphs 
over the frail goddesses of his own Olympus.* 

* The ICing and his painters having- wholly exhausted the history of Apollo 
in the royal service, Mignard, a favourite painter, was ordered to begin a ne* 



PARIS. 13 

Sculpture, the art which peculiarly belongs to a free country, 
and which has rarely flourished among slaves, wholly declined 
during the reigns of Louis XIII. and XIV. and with the excep- 
tion of the Porte St. Denis, has left nothing of these times in 
France, that is not inferior to the works which preceded it. Puget, 
the most celebrated and eminent statuary of the day, disdained a 
dictation to his genius, " de par le Roi" [by the King], and pre- 
ferred, as he himself expresses it, *< d'exercer son genie librement 
a Marseilles, d Vasservissement de Versailles." [Exercising his 
genius in freedom at Marseilles, to the slavery of Versailles.] 

When Louis XV. ascended t!;_e throne, painting in France was 
in its lowest state of degradation; and it was reserved for the 
genius and spirited exertions of Vien and Danjevilliersto redeem 
the art, by recommending the study of nature as the best model. 
David, by his powerful talent and practical exertion, materially 
contributed to this revolution and improvement, and may be said 
to have founded a new school, rather than to have improved an 
old one. But it is the first effort of change to fly to extremes ; and 
♦ tins eminent painter, in his profound disgust for gorgeous dra- 
peries, affected groupings, and overcharged colouring, fell into 
an anatomical style of drawing, which gives to so many of his 
noble figures their harsh and strongly defined outline; and he 
became sometimes unnatural, by following nature too closely.* 
David was the first painter, in France, who ventured to banish 
the eternal round face, turned-up nose, and glance of mingled 
pertness and licentiousness, which Vateau had made the&eaw ideal 
of female beauty ; and he first gave to the heads of women, in 
historical pictures, that Grecian line of feature, and heroic cast 
of countenance, which distinguish the Italian school. 

The arrival, in the capital of France, of the chef-d 9 cewvres of 
the Italian masters, came opportunely to check the progress of 
the new style, which, under another form of exaggeration, had 
opposed itself to the extravagancies of the old manner. It was 
it the gallery of the Louvre that an altar was then raised to taste 
and to nature, at which all the professors of the art hastened to 
imbibe their inspirations, and to offer their homage. « We did 
not" (said M. Gerard, speaking to me on the subject) « we did 
not go to the Louvre, merely to imitate and multiply copies of 
pictures, that we deemed inimitable ; but we went to study even 

series of adulation, on anew theme, and is said to have absolutely died of the 
fatigue of flattering the King-, before he had got half through his task: leav- 
ing behind him more sky-blue robes, and full-blown roses, arrows, darts, and 
garlands, than any of his millinerycotemporaries in the degraded art. 

* The reliefs in all the pictures of David's, which 1 saw in Paris, and in 
those of some of his pupils, struck me to be of a strength and tone beyond 
that of nature, or accident. The much-admired sword, in his magnificent 
picture of Leonidas, illustrates my observation, which, however, as Being 
simply my own, may be erroneous. 



14» PARIS. 

the minutest details : a light, a shade, a trait, a tint, in a single 
picture was an object of study and imitation for days together. 
The minutest details fascinated our admiration, as the greatest 
ensemble excited our wonder — nothing in these admirable chef- 
d'ceuvres was below attention, if much was beyond our praise; 
and if our progress, while we studied them, was inadequate to 
our efforts, our deficiency did not arise from a want of just ap- 
preciation of their excellence, or of perpetual and laborious study 
of the perfect models they presented to our imitation." 

It was my good fortune to have known many of the most 
eminent French artists, resident,. at Paris at the time I visited it ; 
and, in illustrating my page with names destined for posterity, 
with the names of Denon, Gerard, Girodet, Guerin, Le Fevre, 
and Casas, 1 am enabled to observe, on their authority, that the 
assertions, made by some very recent travellers in France, that 
the French artists neglected the Italian masters, to form their 
style and taste in the schools of the Coypels and Mignards, is 
false, and wholly unfounded. It indeed seems impossible that 
any one would have ventured on such an assertion, who had 
visited the atteliers [work-rooms] of the eminent French artists 
of the present day, or was acquainted with the state of the art in 
France, and with the utter contempt into which its former vicious 
-school has fallen. While the best refutation of such defamatory 
and prejudicial assertions will be found in the Battle of Jluster- 
lit%, by Gerard ; the Plague of Jaffa, by Gros ; the Deluge, of 
Girodet ; the Dido, of Guerin ; the Leonidas, of David ; the En- 
dymion, of Prudhom ; the Portraits of Robert Lefevre, and the 
exquisite miniatures and cabinet pictures of Saint, Isabey, and 
Augustin.* 

* I know not how far it may be justifiable to reveal the mysteries of the 
attelier [painting-room], or whether foreign spectators can be supposed to hold 
themselves bound by all the delicate convenance [reserve] of native artists. I should 
find it difficult to conceal the exquisite pleasure I felt, from along and admiring 
view of an historical picture of Monsieur Gerard's> which has lain unfinished, 
in his work-room, since the first entrance of the allies into Paris. — The subject 
is, Achilles mourning over the BodyofPatroclus, at the moment that his immortal 
mother comes to console and counsel with him. The principal figures are, 
the body of Patroclus, Achilles, and Thetis ; but the genius of the picture 
lies (or seemed to me to lie) in the contrast produced between the inanimate 
countenance of death, and the passionless traits of divinity : — in the sublime 
looks of the goddess, not one mortal expression is to be traced — all is the 
spiritual elevation of superhuman existence. In the livid features of the dead 
hero, the expression of all human feeling is extinct ; both countenances are 
equally passionless — but the one is above the influence of motion, the other 
only beyond its operation. The fine countenance of \chilles forms the best 
contrast to both ; grief repressed, but not subdued — vengeance delayed, but 
not resigned, and struggling with the deference p.^id ai once to the counsels 
of the mother and the goddess, are mingled in his beautiful features. 

The Portrait of Madame de Recamier, in her Sialic de Bain [bathing-room?, 



PARIS. 15 

When I first visited the Louvre, the spaces on the walls re- 
mained unoccupied, which had been lately filled with the Ra- 
phaels, the Guidos, the Corregios, the Parmegianos ; and the few 
persons who accompanied me alone occupied the vastness of that 
beautiful and capacious gallery, which had contained thousands, 
when the nuptial procession of Buonaparte with the daughter 
of Austria passed, amidst the brilliant multitude that lined its 
w T alls, and the splendid spoils that hung on them. When I last 
visited it, it was filled with workmen, altering the position of the 
pictures which remain, and adding to their number the sea- 
views of Vernet ; the St. Bruno, series of Le Sueur, and the 
historical pictures of Rubens, all of which I had seen and admi- 
red, a few days before, in the gallery of the Luxembourg, their 
ancient destination. — That Vernet and Le Sueur should have 

possesses a very different merit from the grand epic of the Tent of Achilles. — 
The lovely subject of this picture seems so fresh from her bath, that the glow 
of its tepid vapour flushes her cheek, and mantles to her brow ; and the delicate 
and naked foot has not yet found the refuge of the little slipper. There is, in the 
figure of Madame de Recamier, a sort of graceful awkwardness, which is fre- 
quently found accompanying the unstadied attitudes of a fine form, seeking ease 
of position, without reference to effect; and there is a sort of gathering up of 
the arms and shoulders, which adds the spirit of life and motion to the flowing 
softness of recumbency. — \nother moment, and Madame de Recamier will 
have lain down on her lit de repos [couch], and have given to a downy slum- 
ber those charms, 

» Which, sleeping or awake, shot forth peculiar graces." 

Three sovereigns sat to M. Gerard, in the same day. — At twelve, he at- 
tended the King of France, at the Thuilleries; at two, the Emperor of Rus- 
sia came to him ; and at three, the King of Prussia took the chair vacated by 
the Emperor. This is a curious incident in the life of the painter, and in the 
history of the times. 

Among the pictures, in the gallery of Monsieur Girodet, I was particularly 
struck by a scene from " Atala" and a picture of its author; the most strik- 
ing likeness that ever a portrait bore to an original. His Endymion, extremely 
calculated to fascinate a woman's taste, is, I believe, marked by the approba- 
tion of all the first judges who have seen it. An air of peculiar classical ele- 
gance presides over all the works of Girodet 1 s pencil. 

The modest and ingenious Guerin, of whom all his brother artists speak in 
the highest terms, has but one obstacle to immediate eminence — his youth. — 
His picture of *' Phaedra and Hyppolitus" purchased by the late Emperor, and 
which I saw in owe of the apartments of St. Cloud, laid the foundation of his 
reputation, which his " Dido" has recently so highly raised. 

The Miniatures of Saint have a strength and character, that seem almost 
incompatible with the delicacy of their touch ; David has named Saint, the 
Rembrandt of miniature, — as Isabey, the soft and graceful Isabey, has been 
called the Raphael Laurent is, I believe, at the head of what is termed, 
" tableaux de genre" 

Among the female artists, (and there are many of considerable talent) Ma- 
demoiselle Lesiot holds a distinguished rank, for her admirable representa- 
tions of the interior of churches, &c. &c. &c. 

The French artists (all, at least, with whom I have had the pleasure of con^ 
versing) appear to be men of very considerable information, without the least 
tinge of professional coxcombry. 



£6 PARIS. 

been transported from thence to the Louvre, might have been a 
matter of indifference ; but it appeared to me nothing short of 
profanation, that the pictures of Rubens should have been re- 
moved from a spot, which they had occupied for nearly two 
hundred years — from the palace of his royal patroness, at whose 
commands they were executed ; and who there, day after day, 
watched the progress of his task. It was in the very gallery of 
the Luxembourg, which the pictures of Rubens so long adorned, 
that they were painted ; — it was under his eye they were ranged ; 
it was he disposed them where they lately hung ; and not a board, 
not a nail, in that noble apartment, but taste and sentiment 
would have held sacred. The pictures thus removed, now nearly 
fill up all the vacancies on the walls of the gallery of the Louvre, 
which the late equitable restitutions had left bare. 

The Place de Carrousel, which intervenes between the palace 
of the Louvre and the Tiiilleries, was once notable for the tilts 
and tournaments celebrated within its bounds, and for the court- 
ly melo-drames exhibited in it, during those days of representa- 
tion, when all France seemed 



-A stage ! 



And all the men and women merely players." 

In 1622, Louis XIV. gave here his famous fete to Mad. La 
Valiere, and strove to win her heart by flying Turks, whose 
sorties, from the angles of the court, are said to have given it its 
present name, by a forced etymology of « Quarre-aux-ailes" 
originating the modern application of Carrousel, 

The Place de Carrousel is now most noticed for the grand tri- 
umphal arch, raised in honour of the victories of France, chiefly 
gained by Napoleon Buonaparte, and commemorating in its en- 
tablatures many of their most striking events. 

The close approximation of this beautiful arch to the entrance 
of the palace of the Thuilleries, is its greatest defect. Its greatest 
glory was once to have supported the far-famed horses of Venice, 
whose departure from Paris excited such palpable and audible 
consternation in the inhabitants. The golden car of Triumph 
to which those horses were harnessed, and which, it was said, 
was intended to sustain the image of Napoleon, under the form 
of another Jupiter Tonans, I saw taken down, on the eve of the 
fete of Louis XVIII. Its descent scarcely fixed the momentary 
attention of the idlest passenger. The restitution of the horses 
affected the pride of a nation, which had long learned to esteem 
the treasures of art confided to its care, as its prime glory, and 
dearest boast. For the Chariot of the Sun, to whatever purpose 
it might have been originally devoted, they evinced not the least 
reverence, nor for its overthrow expressed the least regret. 



PARIS. £y 

It was on the entablatures of this arch, that the victories of 
Napoleon, which so long threatened the liberties of Europe, 
were represented, under every form, fact, and allegory, that the 
genius of sculpture or flattery could devise, to meet the eye of 
the conqueror, and to dazzle the minds of an intoxicated people. 
These well-executed triumphs lurked in the concave, started 
from the tympan, and rose on the frieze. The meeting of the 
Emperor Napoleon with his admirer and disciple, the Emperor 
Alexander, was among the most striking of its bas-reliefs. But 
this monument of a friendship, which, like love's frail vow, — 



■ Sweet, but not permanent, 



Bore but the perfume and suppliance of a moment," 

has, I believe, long been removed ; and if seen by the Emperor 
of Russia, in his visit to Paris, must have awakened some stifled 
sympathies, and brought to his recollection — 



- Til at such things were, 



And were most dear to him.' 

* The youthful admiration of the Emperor Alexander for Buonaparte, is, 
well known. I was told that he imitated him in every thing", and that the re- 
publican general was very literally 

«* The mirror, in which he dressed himself.'* 

In their first meeting, at the ratification of the treaty of Tilsit, they evinced 
a sort of romantic fondness for each other's society, which seemed to go far 
beyond the usual ardors of political conferences, and of diplomatic tete-d tetes; 
and if circumstances rather unfavourable to the romantic friendships of em- 
perors had not occurred, the Orestes and Pylades of antiquity might have 
yielded the palm to these imperial friends. To these observations the follow- 
ing description of the imperial embrassades, during the conferences at the peace 
of Tilsit, is not altogether irrelevant. 

After Napoleon and Alexander met on the rafts, thrown between their re- 
spective boats over the waters of the Niemen, they entered the temporary pa- 
vilion together, and remained tete-a-tete for two hours, he lendemain, d midi 
et demi, S M. {Napoleon) s'est rendu au pavilion du Niemen. — L* Empereur 
Alexandre et le Roi de Prusse y sont arrives, au meme moment; les trois souveruins 
sont reste's ensemble dans le salon, pendant une detni-heure ! — A cinque heures, 
V Empereur Alexandre est passe" sur la rive gauche, V Empereur Napoleon Va regu, 
d sa de'scente du bateau, ils ont monte a cheval, et parcouru la grande rue de la 
ville, et sont de'scendus au Palais de I* Empereur Napole'on ! — U Empereur Alex- 
andre y a dine, &c. *Jc. Le 27, I' Empereur s'est rendu chez V Empereur Alex- 
andre ; les deux princes sont restts ensemble jusqu'd six heures; ils ont alora 
monte a cheval, et $e sont alle's voir manceuvrer la garde impiriale. A huit heures, 
les deux souverains sont revenus au Palais de P Empereur Napole'on, oil ils ont 
dine", comme la veille / ! &c. Uc. &c. Les deux souverains sont ensuite rentres 
dans le Cabinet de V Empereur Napoleon, ou ils sont restSs seids, jusqu'd onze 
heures du soir ! ! ! Le 28. A une heure, VEmpereur Alexandre est venu /aire une 
visite chez VEmpereur Napole'on ! ! A quatre heures V Empereur Napole'on est alls 
voir V Empereur Alexandre ! ! ! lis ont movte a iheval a cinque heures ! I &c. &c. 

[The next day, at half past twelve, his Majesty (Napoleon) went to the pa- 
PA11T II. D 



|S PARIS. 

The palace of the Thuilleries, inferior, in every point of view, 
to the Louvre, to which it is joined by the gallery, is still a very 
noble and venerable structure, and forms a beautiful and appro- 
priate termination to its own lovely gardens, and to that grand 
perspective which opens from the Place Louis Quinze. The 
palace, as it now stands, was erected in 1564, by Catherine de 
Medieis, and in its apartments she celebrated that singular fete, 
on the occasion of the marriage of the King of Navarre with her 
fair frail daughter, of which Mons. de St. Foix expressly ob- 
serves :— * «* Peut-on penser, sans jr emir, d unefemme qui compose 

vilion on the Niemen. The emperor Alexander and the king of Prussia arrived 
there at the same moment; the three sovereigns remained together in the 
saloon about half an hoar ! — At five o'clock, the emperor Alexander passed 
over to the left bank. The emperor Napoleon received him as he landed from 
the boat; they mounted on horseback, rode along the principal street of the 
town, and alighted at the palace of the emperor Napoleon J — The emperor 
Alexander dined there, &c. &c. The 27th, the emperor Napoleon visited the 
emperor Alexander ; the two princes were together till six o'clock ; they then 
mounted their horses, and went to see the imperial guard manoeuvre. At 
eight o'clock, the two sovereigns returned to the palace of the emperor Na- 
poleon, where they dined, as the day before ! ! &c. &c &c. The two sove- 
reigns then retired to the cabinet of the emperor Napoleon, where they were 
alone till eleven o'clock at night ' ! ! The 28th, at one o'clock, the emperor 
Alexander paid a visit to the emperor Napoleon ! ! At four the emperor Na- 
poleon went to see the emperor Alexander ! ! ! They were on horseback at 
five o'clock ! ! &c. &c] 

The hour of parting at length arrived ; and nothing in the histories of Da- 
mon and Pythias, or Valentine and Orson, was half so affecting as the impe- 
rial "farexveV " Les Empereiirs sont resits ensemble pendant irois heures, et ont 
enswte monti d cheval ; Us se sont rendus au bord du J\\emen> ou V Empereur 
Alexandre s 1 est embarqut — U Empereur Napoleon est demeure sur le rivage, 
jusqifd ce que V Empereur Alexandre fdt arrive* d Vautre bord. Les marques 
d'Jffection que les princes se sent donntes, en se stparant, ont excite' la plus vive 
Amotion par mi les nombreux £pectateurs h qui s'etaieni r assemble" s> pour voir les plu- 
grands souverains du tnonde offrir, dans les tfmoignages de leur reimio?i et deleuv 
ami tie, un solide gar ant du repos de la terre ! ! /"* 

[The emperors staid together about three hours, and then mounted their 
horses; they went to the bank of the Niemen, where the emperor Alexander 
embarked. — The emperor Napoleon staid on the shore, till the emperor Alex- 
ander hud arrived at the other side. The affectionate manner in which the 
princes took leave of each other, excited the deepest emotions among the 
numerous spectators, who had assembled to see the greatest sovereigns in the 
world offer, in the evidences of their re-union and their friendship, a solid 
guarantee for the repose of the world.] 

•• Oh world, thy slippery turns ! friends now fast sworn, 
Whose double bosoms seem to wear one heart, 
Whose hours, whose meals, whose exercise, are still 
Together, who twin, as 'twere, in love 
Inseparable; shall within this hour, 
On a dissension of a doit, break out 
To bitterest enmity." 

* The above is a simple and literal transcript from the journals of the day 



PARIS. 19 

et prepare une fete sur la massacre quelle doit faire, quatre jours 
apres. d'une partie de la nation sur laquelle elle regnoit i qui sou- 
rit d ses victimes, qui joue avec le carnage, qui fait danser les 
nymphes sar les bords d 9 unejleuve de sang, et qui mele les charmes 
de la musique anx gemissements de cent mille malheureux; quelle 
egorge .' f J" [Can one think without shuddering, of a woman 
who composes and prepares a fete, at the same time that she 
plans a massacre, when four days after, a part of the nation 
over which she reigns, is to be immolated : who smiles on her 
victims, who plays with carnage, who makes her nymphs dance 
on the borders of a river of blood, and who mingles the charms 
of music with the groans of the hundred thousand \ irtims that 
she slaughters.] This masque was, in fact, a rehearsal of the 
horrors of Saint Bartholomew ! 

It was in the Salle des Machines [the Hall of Machines] of the 
Thuilleries, that Louis XIV. celebrated many of his formal re- 
velries, and danced, as chef de ballet [chief of the ballet], for the 
amusement of his court. It was there, also, that Voltaire was 
crowned, a short time before his death, at the representation of 
his own Irene. It was from its truly splendid chambers, that 
the unfortunate Louis XVI. was dragged to the gloomy cells of 
the Temple; — there the National Convention hold its assemblies; 
— there Robespierre resided, during his reign of terror; and 
there Buonaparte dwelt, during the whole of his consular and 
imperial government. 

It is curious to observe, that in the apartments of the re<z>-dc- 
chaussee [ground-floor], occupied by Catherine de Medicis, Na- 
poleon Buonaparte, Ex-King of Rome, held his fairy court, at 
the mature age of five years ; and was taught to ** representer no- 
blement et avec grace ," [to perform his part with dignity and 
grace], on each returning sabbath, when he received the ho- 
mage of prelates and marshals, courtiers and statesmen, yield- 
ing the sceptre of the Csesars, in the form of a babifs rattle, and 
sometimes, when thus 

" Dress'd in a little brief authority, 
Playing such tricks before high heaven," 

as made his own obsequious court not, « like angels, weep," but, 
indulge in a very different propensity; for it occasionally hap- 
pened, that " not to laugh, exceeded all power of face."* 

* His Majesty of Rome, though a beautiful and promising personage, soWme- 
times indulged in caprices incidental to the wantonness of power. One motVn- 
ing, when his levee was unusually crowded, no arguments could prevail o.n 
the King to leave some toys, given him by the cher papa [dear papa]. Hit..: 
amiable governess, the Comtesse de Montesquieu, was obliged to have re- 



&0 PA *is. 

While the " baby-king" dispensed smiles and sugar-plumbs , 
received homage and confitures [sweet- meats], in one of the wings 
of the palace, and the holy representative of St. Peter lavished 
demi-trancs and bentdicites [blessings], from the windows of the 
other,* the grand political Roscius himself went through his 
several acts of imperial dignity, in the corps delogis [hall], be- 
tween both. Thus the feverish history of each short-lived hero 
of the day, who 

" Struts and frets his hour upon the stage* 
And then is heard no more," 

might be compendiously illustrated in the descriptive details of 
a suite of apartments, as the prim house-keeper of an old En- 
glish mansion recites, with her history of the blue and the green 
chambers, the lives and adventures of the Sir Hildebrands and 
the Sir Walters, who are arranged along their walls in their 
periwigs and picture-frames, the «< shadows of shades" long 
passed away into nothing. • 

The Thuilleries, in its appropriations and names, has shared 
the fate of all things else in France, for the last twenty- five 
years. The Chateau des Thuilleries, its ancient royal designa- 
tion, was exchanged for that of the Palais du GouvernemenU and 
that again for the Palais Imperial, It is now once more the 

course to the authority of his imperial mother, who ordered that the rod 
should not be spared, and the child spoilt, but that the King should be forced 
into the audience-chamber, to receive his court. A person of rank, present 
upon this momentous occasion, when royalty kissed the rod, assured me, 
that no trace of the swoln chtek and tearful eye was to be found in the coun- 
tenance of the tiny king"; but that he at once recovered himself, and held out 
his hand to be kissed with so smiling a grace, that no opposition to his royal 
tvill could be traced, in his most gracious manner. 

* The pleasure and amusement, which his Holiness found in a " -winter at 
Paris" are said to be the subject of royal reproach at the present moment. 
The following " substance" of the pending negotiations, between the Vatican 
and the Thuilleries, is circulated among the mauvais plaisants [jesters] of the 
French capital. 

" Comment avez-vous pu faire un Concordat avec l'usurpateur?" dit le Roi 
au Pape, qui re"pond : 

" Sire, je vous ai cherche par tout, et je ne vous ai trouve, nulle part.'* 

'* Mais, vons savez bien (dit le Roy) qu'avec ma legitimit£, ou je ne suis 
f>as, fy suis." 

" Cela est vrai ; (r£pond Sa Sainterd) mais de mon cote, avec mon infailli- 
bilite. quandfai tort, fat raison." 

[" How could you make a concordat with the usurper?" said the King to 
the Pope, who replied: 

**} Sire, I sought you every where, and I found you no where.'* 

V Bit you know, (said the King) that with my legitimacy, where I am not, 
there I am.'' 

" That is true; (answered his holiness) but for my part, with my infallibili- 
ty, when I am wrong, I am right."] 



PARIS. 2 

Chateau des Thuilleries, under the revived dynasty of its ancient 
masters and occupants, who again inhabit, and hold their courts 
in, its beautiful and splendid apartments. 

" Here pitch we our tents to-day > 
But where to-morrow? 

# # # # 

•' La docte Antiquity fut tonjours vine'rable; 
Je ne la trouve pas cepemiant adorable." 
[Learned Antiquity was always venerable ; however I do not find it adora- 
ble-] 

There is an air of gloomy desolation, hanging over the silent 
grass-grown courts of the Sorbonne, with its dark buildings and 
dilapidated chapel, which cornmunirated a correspondent sad- 
ness to my imagination, as I entered it, and which not even the 
brilliant attelier [painting-room] of Meynier, and of Mademoi- 
selle de could dispel. As I stood in the great hall 

of many a theological disputation, the answer of Casaubon to 
one of the learned doctors, occurred to me with great force; 
« Voild une salle, oil I'on dispute depuis quatre cents ans" [Here 
is a hall, where they have disputed for more than four hundred 
years], — said his solemn Cicerone. " Eh 9 Men! qu'est-ce qu'on y 
a decide?" [Well, and what have they decided ?] asked Casaubon. 

The Sorbonne is indeed a singular monument, commemorating 
the facility with which mankind submit to the influence of opi- 
nions, imposed on them by dogmatising arrogance. Of all that 
was taught and disputed by the doctores socii of the Sorbonne, 
what now remains to benefit the interests of mankind ? Who now 
occupies himself about the doctrine of grace, supported and 
argued with so much vehemence, by L'Escot and the disciple of 
St. Cyrian? W T ho now enlists under the banners of Hubert or 
Arnauld, in their contests on Jansenism and Jesuitism ? In a little 
time, even the names of these doughty disputants, who had once 
so many partisans, and who so long engaged the attention of the 
public, will be consigned to oblivion. It was of this great thea- 
tre of theological disputation, and religious sophisms, that 
Pascal observes, " Qit'il Stoit plus aise d'y trouver des moines, que 
des argumens" [It was easier to find monks, than arguments]. — 
But in the silent, solemn courts of the Sorbonne, there are now 
neither monks nor arguments to be found ; and the once gloomy 
cells of its doctors are devoted to the most elegant of the arts, 
and occupied by its professors. Here, in quiet sequestration 
from the busy haunts of men, young and aspiring talent pursues 
its way to eminence, and the pencil of genius creates my tholo- 



%% PARIS. 

gical loves, and poetical graces,* where theological brawls were 
once loudly re-echoed; and where the grave Coger vented his 
bile, in his laborious censures on the <* Belisaire" of Marmonrel, 
and the " Epoques de la Nature" [jEras of Nature], The church 
of the Sorbnnne, which cardinal de Richelieu seems to have built 
for the reception of his own magnificent monument, (now re- 
moved to the Monumens Francois,} is in a state of ruinous dila- 
pidation. It is in one of its spacious vaults that moulder the 
remains of that once « gallant, gay Lothario," the irresistible 
object of every lady's love, the subject of every courtly poet's 
song, the Marechal Due de Richelieu. 

#JL J& 4£ Jfr 4£, J^, , A£ J/. Jf, 

^P **T TT W W "VT *flF TP w 

The Mbaye Royale de Ste. Genevieve, devoted « to all the gods" 
under the name of the Pantheon, during the revolution ; and 
destined once more to desert the patronage of the heathen dei- 
ties, in favor of its old christian mistress, whose golden shrine 
may again glitter under its magnificent dome, is a ^ery splendid, 
and a very imposing edifice. From a long contemplation of its 
noble dome, admirable for the boldness and lightness of its 
double cupola, the chef-d'oeuvre of the structure, we descended 
into the gloom of its subterraneous chambers, almost as exten- 
sive, but much less rude, than the crypt of Canterbury cathe- 
dral, which we had visited a short time before. Here we found 
several little chapels and monuments, containing the ashes of 
the heroes of Marengo and Austerlitz : — Here, too, we found 
the tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau. — The ashes of the patriarch 
of Ferney were conveyed hither, with solemn pomp, from the 
Mbaye de Sellieres, in 1792. — The remains of Rousseau were 
taken from his own beloved « He des Peupliers" [Isle of Poplars], 
and some time after were entombed in the Pantheon, f under the 
special direction of Cambaceres. It cannot be said of these two 
celebrated philosophers, that, with respect to each other, « they 
were lovely in their lives," though in " death they are not dis- 
united ;" for Voltaire would, most probably, have preferred " his 
snug lying in the Jlbbaye" to this close neighbourhood with 
Rousseau, even in the « Temple of all the Gods /" 

Mirabeau was the first of the profane, whose remains were 
inurned within the hallowed walls of St. Genevieve. Nothing 
could exceed the pomp and popular grief, which accompanied 
his funeral, but the popular caprice, which so soon afterwards 

* I saw here, in the attelier of Monsieur Meynier, some good pictures. 

f The revolutionary passion for Rousseau is much abated ; while the repu- 
tation of Voltaire increases with revolving- years. At ihe time his walking 
cane was sold for so high a price, the MS- of Julie was put up for sale, and 
did not find one bidder- 



PARIS. %% 

deemed his remains unworthy of so distinguished a tomb; and 
which again removed his ashes to an obscure corner, in the 
cemetery of St. Erienne du Mont. <* II n 9 y a qu'un pas du 
Capitol, a la Roche Tarpienne" [It is but a step from the Capitol 
to (he Tarpeian Rock], was one of the best observations in one 
of his last eloquent speeches. 

The Bibliotheque du Pantheon, or the Bibliotheque de Ste. Gene- 
vieve [The Library of the Pantheon, or the Library of Saint 
Genevieve], is notable for its cupola, painted by Restaut; 
for its cabinet of antiquities ; for it curious plan of Rome, en re- 
lief, and for its treasures of eighty thousand volumes. But the 
obje; t most interesting to me, in this valuable library, was its 
venerable and distinguished librarian, Monsieur Chevalier, 3 * the 
author of so many well known tracts on Greece, and himself an 
admirable transcript of the independent literary men in France, 
of the last forty years ; combining, in his manner, a certain im- 
press of erudition, acquired in the closet, with all the politeness 
which is attained exclusively in the saloon. He talked much to 
me, and with great delight, of his residence in England and 
Scotland ; and made mauy enquiries for his more youthful and 
very ingenious co-labor ateur, Sir William Gell. 

The Cabinet de Ste, Genevieve contains a collection, more cu- 
rious than extensive, of natural history, and antiquities, Etrus- 
can, Egyptian, Greek and Roman. But I saw nothing among 
its medals and fossils, nothing among its specimens of nature 
and art, that had an attraction for me equal to that of two small 
portraits, which decorated its walls; the one, an original picture 
of Mary Queen of Scots, presented, by her own beautiful hands, 
to the monks of St. Genevieve, and in high preservation; — the 
other, a black Nun ; a natural daughter of Louis XIV., bearing 
a much stnmjrer resemblance to her negro mother, than to the 
Roman features of her august father. — Of all the loves of this 
royal Adonis, which have reached posterity, this passion for 
a " dingy dear" is the only one, known solely through the 
evidence of a portrait, and authenticated simply by tradition. 

When we first entered the library of the Pantheon, we found 
abo>e two hundred students deeply engaged in their learned 
pursuits, and insensible to all that was passing around them. 
They were all very young men, but study had already faded 
many a blooming cheek, and curved many an ample brow. 
Some of them, as they sat buried in abstraction, might, for atti- 

* Monsieur Chevalier was for some time private tutor to Sir F. Burdett. I 
owe my introduction to Monsieur Chevalier to Mr. Warden, the late American 
consul, in Pans ; from whom I experienced much kindness and attention. Mr. 
Warden is well known in the literary circles of Paris, and is the author of an 
excellent work, on American Statistics' 



£4* PARIS. 

tude and expression, have presented splendid models to painting 
or sculpture, in personifying the first career of genius, or in 
representing an image of studious youth, in its most picturesque 
point of view. This noble library is open daily to the public, 
frcm ten till two ; it is chiefly resorted to by the students of the 
pays Latin; and Monsieur Chevalier assured me, that there were 
generally a greater number, but rarely fewer, than I then saw 
assembled. Take the patient, laborious, but enthusiastic student 
of the pays Latin** the ardent volunteer, not the constrained 
conscript of learning and science, supporting every privation, 
and almost rendered insensible to want, by his devotion to study; 
behold him working his own way to eminence, undebased by 
patronage, unassisted by prescribing and scanty liberality, and 
lie forms a very noble contrast to the frivolous gens de lettres 
[men of letters] of other times, living in a miserable dependance 
upon those, whose support they repaid by the prostitution of 
their talent, the loss of their time, and the sacrifice of their 
liberty. 

The Palais du Luxembourg, or Palais Conservateur, less rich 
that the palaces of the Louvre and the Thuilleries, is not with- 
out its historical associations. It was erected on the ruins of the 
hotel of the Due de Luxembourg, by Marie de Medicis, and 
became the residence of the celebrated princess Mademoiselle de 
Montpensier. In the apartments, where La Fosse had painted 
the butterfly -loves of Flora and Zephyr, now so much more 
beautifully represented, at the French opera, by Albert, and 
Fanni Bias, the romantic Mademoiselle de Montpensierf re- 
ceived the clandestine visits of her inconstant Due de Lauzun; 
and these chambers, sacred to royal loves, to the graces, and 
the arts, became the prison, it may be said the tomb, of all that 
France boasted, of virtue or talent, in the year 1793. To its 
gardens, then a desolate waste, now a paradise, weeping friends 
resorted, during the reign of terror, to catch a last look from 
all they held dearest, and to whom the painful indulgence was 
not alwas granted, of approaching the windows of their prison 
chamber. 

The paintings of Rubens no longer enrich the galleries, where 
they were executed ; but La Baigneuse [the woman bathing], 

* The pays Latin is the name given to the quartier of the Sorbonne, where 
the students of the many colleges, lycees, and academies in that neighbour- 
hood lodge- Here may be found a p><?cis [summary] of all the learned faculties* 
and the students of the Ecoles de Medicine, the Jardin des Plantes [Schools of 
Medicine, the Garden of Plants]* &c. &c- &c-, usually devoe the hours, 
spared from professional study, to the public libraries, particularly to the 
JBiblio.he'qtie du Pantheon [Library of the Pantheon.] 

-j- This ludicrous and ^ namoured old lady becomes almost interesting, as 
the heroine of one of Madame de Genlis' charming novels. 



PARIS- 25 

that beautiful specimen of modern French sculpture, still, I be- 
lieve, remains at the Luxembourg, to compensate for other 
losses ! 

There are perhaps, in no other capital of Europe, such beau- 
tiful, such numerous, and such spacious gardens, for public re- 
creation, as are to be found, even in the heart of Paris; and 
which, indeed, make one forget its narrow streets, and close 
avenues, by the facility they aff >rd to all the purposes of health 
and exercise. The garden of the Luxembourg is eminently 
beautiful : — its shaded groves, its luxuriant orange trees, its 
statues, its fountains, the quantity, loveliness, and variety of its 
shrubs, and flowers — its noble palace, and its extended views, 
render it a perfect Eden; while the quaint and primitive popu- 
lation, which resort to its walks, and occupy its numerous and 
commodious seats, by the simplicity of their habits, manners, 
and air, rather increase, than diminish, its attractions, hi a 
stranger's eye. Less brilliant and cheerful, and infinitely less 
populous and fashionable, than the gardens of the Thuilleries — 
less curious and important than the Jardin des Plantes [Garden 
of Plants], the gardens of the Luxembourg are, I think, more 
noble, and even more a bel-respiro, than either of these distin- 
guished resorts of pleasure, fashion, and science. 

The riches of the public libraries, the liberality with which 
they are opened to readers, of every class and rank, and the ac- 
commodation and facilities provided for those who visit them, 
either as places of study, or curiosity, render Paris the most 
desirable residence in the world, to the learned, the studious, 
and the literary. 

The Bibliotheque du Roi, named successively the Bibliotheque 
National*, and Bibliotheque Tmperiale, but now once more the 
Bibliotheque du Roi, is, I believe, deemed one of the most exten- 
sive and curious public libraries in Europe. Amidst the multitude 
of books which crowd on the view, it is difficult to circumscribe 
the imagination to that point, when its original foundation by 
Charles V. included but twenty volumes. This great emporium 
of bibliothecal riches fell into neglect, during the agitated pe- 
riods of the revolution ; but during the imperial regime it was 
eminently enriched, by the literary spoils of the Belgic and Ita- 
lian conquests. Among the number of its recent acquisitions 
were several editions of works, anterior to 1*76; the MS. of 
Leonardo da Vinci, and the " Herbier" of Haller. 

Under the auspices of the learned Mons. van Prat, and of 
Mons. Langles, the celebrated orientalist, we derived all the 
pleasure and benefit from our visit to this great national library, 

PART II. E 



g6 PARIS- 

which it was possible to obtain from the most profound know- 
ledge, liberal communication, and flattering attentions. What 
struck me most, among the many curious MS. works, which 
were particularly recommended to our notice, was a collection 
ofletters. by Pope, and some writing of Rousseau's, remarkable 
for its caligraphy ; a Virgil of Racine, with notes, written by 
himself in the margin ; a collection of MS. letters from Voltaire 
to Mad. du Chatelet, written in an excellent hand, the initials of 
all the proper names in small character, (an error universal in 
modern French composition, for even Fontainbleau he spelt with 
a small f) ; a Boccaccio, of the same date with that purchased, 
at so- large a price, by the present Duke of Devonshire; and a 
Recneil [collection] of letters from Henry IV. to the Marquise 
de Verneuil, perfectly legible, and highly preserved. Over this 
little collection 1 loitered sufficiently long, to put the patience of 
Mons. van Prat to the test, if indeed it were not a toute epreuve 
[proof against every thing]. These letters were characterised 
by that warmth, frankness, and simplicity, which so eminently 
disiinguished the style and character of the mountain-bred prince, 
who never seems to have lost the impression of his early habits 
and education. 1 observed, that there was not one manuscript of 
any literary woman; of the Scuderis, the Daciers, the Sevignes, 
the La Fayettes. It is not improbable, the manuscripts of Ma- 
dame de Stael w ill form the foundation of a new branch, in the 
curious collection of the Bibliotheque du Roi [King's Library]. 

Among the antiquities and curiosities of this splendid library, 
the chair of King Dagobert, in which Buonaparte was crowned 
Emperor of the French, appeared the most interesting, by its 
great antiquity and rude structure. The enormous globes, con- 
structed in 1683, by the Jesuit Coronelli, were the most singu- 
lar, and the French Parnassus, the most amusing and ludicrous, 
and peculiarly characteristic of the taste of the times, in which 
it was made. On the top of this French Parnassus appears 
Louis XIV. in his old stock character of Apollo, surrounded by 
the graces, (represented by Madame de Suze, Madame des 
Houlieres, and Mademoiselle de Scuderi,) and receiving a model 
of the work he crowns, from I he hands of Monsieur Gamier, 
who presents it on his knees. This toy, which is scarcely worthy 
a place in a girl's baby-house, is described in a folio volume, 
under the title of " Parnasse Franqais" and was presented to 
the library in 1732, by Monsieur Titon du Tillet. The Biblio- 
theque du Roi is supposed to contain considerably above three 
hundred and fifty thousand volumes ! 

The Bibliotheque Mu%arhu* lately the Bibliotheque de Qnatre- 

* This library was directed to be sold bj the parliament of Paris, during 
the Fronde, and fifty thousand francs of the produce were assigned, as a reward 
to whoever should take its founder, dead or alive. 



PARIS. %j 

Nations, was so close to my place of residence, that, fulfilling 
the old proverb, I visited it less frequently than most of the 
other libraries. Of its intelligent and very clever librarian, 
Monsieur Feletz, one of the most able, and indeed, most liberal 
critics of the day, I saw a great deal ; and I was in the habit of 
receiving so many gratuitous attentions at his hands, that those 
he was deputed officially to pay me, are among the least, of 
which I preserve a grateful recollection. To the Arsenal, and 
other public libraries at Paris, my visits were so cursory, that 
it would be presumption to mention them farther than to observe, 
that all are conducted with great liberality, for the public use, 
and the encouragement of letters. Nor can I close this very 
feeble sketch of these noble and splendid institutions, without an 
observation, to which every stranger who has visited them must 
subscribe, that the distinguished gentlemen, who preside over 
them, present a union of urbanity and erudition, a knowledge of 
Jife and a knowledge of books that leave no evidence, not a sin- 
gle trace of the dust of the closet, or the smoke of the lamp. To 
be at once a fine gentleman and a profound scholar, is a privi- 
lege granted but to few ; but I am certain, that it is a union 
more frequently existing in France, than in any country what- 
ever : and that it will always be much easier to find the learning 
and urbanity of Menage, in the libraries and saloons of Paris, 
than the learning and brutality of Johnson, even among the 
most dogmatic and least polished of the members of its schools 
of science and philosophy. 

In visiting the ancient and royal manufactory of the Gobelins 
I w T as struck with the conviction of its intimate connexion with 
absolute power, and regal expenditure. The produce of its looms, 
too beautiful for utility, and too costly for private purchase, is 
exclusively destined by the monarch to decorate the walls of his 
numerous palaces. Unbeneficial to commerce, and possessing 
no influence on the national industry, this manufacture, a dead 
weight upon the public purse, by its peculiar rules of govern- 
ment, binds the workman, from generation to generation, to an 
employment both morally and physically enervating ; and at- 
taches them, like slaves, to the establishment, by rendering them 
incapable of adopting any other mode of subsistence. The same 
families have, frmn time immemorial, supplied the successive 
artists, as if the process were a birth-right inheritance, like the 
possessions of the Hindoo tribes. It takes the prime of a long 
life, to become an expert workman, and the best half of a man's 
existence not unfrequently goes to working the hangings of a 
bed-room, or ceiebr iting, in worsted, some single incident of a. 
royal life. To conceive the tediousness of tliis curious art, it is 
necessary to view the workmen at their labours ; but to judge of 
• 



28 PARIS. 

its beauty, perfection, and close imitation to painting, some of 
its recent productions, copying the finest modern pictures of the 
best modern artists, should be seen. The glow of colouring, 
fidelity of outline, and delicacy of touch, rival the most masterly 
touches of the pencil. 

Some fine pieces, of which the victories of Buonaparte form- 
ed the subject, copied from the works of Gros ano Gerard, were 
in the frames, when a change, in the political affairs of Europe, 
produced a change in the affairs of the Gobelins, and the battles 
of Jaffa and Austerlitz were hurled into obscurity, to make way 
for representations of the present royal family of France, pic- 
tures of Henry IV. and trophies and deuces of loyal sentiment, 
crowned with lilies. As these subjects were newly put into the 
frames, nothing was finished ; but the paintings from which they 
were to be copied, were already rivalled in the little that was 
commenced. The tapestry of the present day is infinitely su- 
perior to all that has preceded ; and through the kindness of 
the director, Monsieur Casas, I had an opportunity of judging 
by comparison, as he displayed for our inspection all the differ- 
ent stages of the art, from some of its earliest to its latest pro- 
ductions. The workmen looked all squalid and unhealthy; 
they ordinarily rise by seniority in the different degrees of their 
profession, and as their moderate salaries are fixed, they know 
the utmost point of competency, to which their most laborious 
exertions can attain. They occupy small houses in the square 
of the building, which is usually their cradle and their tomb ; 
and, upon the whole, the Gobelins and its inhabitants left an im- 
pression of gloom on my mind, that, without lessening my sen- 
sibility to the kindness and attentions of Monsieur Casas, took 
from the pleasure and amusement, derived from its curious and 
beautiful productions. 

Among the most splendid specimens of the manufacture which 
we saw, were a small representation of the death of Dessaix, 
and a very large piece, copied from the admired picture of Buo- 
naj .-arte's visit to the plague-hospitals at Cairo, in which he is 
depicted in the act of touching a plague sore, in order to inspire 
confidence and to revive hope. The faithful but horrible repre- 
sentation of disease, in all its tremendous features, and the per- 
sonal likeness of the principal figures, are accurately preserved 
in the tapestry copy, which, at some future time, will serve to 
illustrate the history of the revolution. At present it is, by 
royal command, consigned to darkness and obscurity ; and can 
only be visit'd by a special favour, of which foreigners are al- 
most exclusively the objects. The sole benefit, which the na- 
tion can be said to derive from this costly manufacture, consists 
in occasional improvements in the manipulations of dyeing, by 



PARIS. 29 

which the brilliancy of the colours lias been greatly increased ; 
an improvement that will doubtless influence the national manu- 
facture of silk. 

Of the many objects which attracted our attention at the Go- 
belins, the water-colour drawings of Monsieur Casas himself were 
not among the least pleasing. The scenery being taken from 
Greece and from Palestine, excited an interest beyond thai of 
their picturesque effect, or exquisite finish. This gentleman being 
adverse to the revolution, experienced very harsh and unjust 
treatment at the hands of its several governments. He had de- 
dicated the early part of his life to travels in Italy, Sicily; Greece 
and Palestine, collecting drawings of ail the principal remains of 
antiquity ; and he was among the many persons employed by the 
Duke de Choiseul, during his residence in Asia, in illustrating 
the classic land of Genius and of Liberty. — From the designs he 
had thus the opportunity of collecting, at an enormous expense 
for a person of his moderate fortune, he constructed models of 
the most celebrated architectural antiquities ; not in their present 
state of dilapidation, but completed from the remaining fragments, 
and restored to their original splendor and perfection. 

Of this costly and beautiful collection, which embraces speci- 
mens of almost every country and every sera, the republican 
government are said to have possessed themselves by an almost 
forcible purchase, ar a price which, though far below its intrinsic 
value, or even its first cost, uas never faithfully paid to the ven- 
der. And to add to the mortification, the models remain to this 
day buried in an obscure chamber of the Palais de VInstitut 
[Palace of the Institute], at the Qnatre Nations [Four Nations], 
it is impossible for the person, who has not seen them, and who 
judges only from his general idea of such works, to conceive the 
imposing effect produced by their number, by their perfection, 
or by the associations they inevitably suggest. Let those who 
have seen the long rows of broken columns, which are exhibited 
in the pictures of Palmyra, conceive these splendid remains re- 
stored to their original condition, and connected into one whole, 
of perfect symmetry and of imposing magnitude. Imagination 
instantly peoples the long vista of colonnades, and fancy traces 
there the footsteps of a Zenobia and a Longinus. The theatre 
near Lampsacus, in a state of equal perfection, and fitted for 
scenic representation, affords an accurate idea of the ceconomy 
of the Greek drama, and of the magnificence of its details. The 
majestic Parthenon frowns beside the superb temple of Paestum, 
and contrasts in its severe simplicity with the more stupendous 
and at the same time more florid architecture of the Egyptian 
temple, at Tentyra. The richness, the variety of this collection, 
the beauty and minute fidelity of its execution, the instruction it 



30 PARIS. 

is calculated to convey, and the infinity of reflections it must 
necessarily excite, render it one of the most interesting and 
curious exhibitions which Paris affords ; and 1 have dvvelt more 
particularly upon it, from the obscurity in which it is buried, 
and the general ignorance 1 found among our countrymen at 
Paris, of the existence of this treasure to the antiquarian, and 
the artist. 

W Tr * "Ir tt 

It is a curious observation of Menage, that "les armoiries des 
nouvelles maisons sont, pour la plus grande partie, les enseignes de 
leurs boutiques" [the coats of arms, of new families, are generally 
the signs of their shops]. If this be generally true, the armo- 
rial bearings of the future parvenus [upstarts] of France, eleva- 
ted by acquired opulence from the shop to the peerage, will pre- 
sent a very curious series of heraldic mysteries, and puzzle the 
comprehension of posterity. The scutcheon would not be very 
easily deciphered, even by the garter-king of arms himself, 
which should bear, on a field argent, a cow dressed in the ex- 
treme of the fashion of 1816; or •< gules" three Mandarins pro- 
per, shaking together in aguish fraternity. Still, however, these 
new chimerical figures, introduced among the cockatrices crested, 
and griffons segreiants of older coats, have now their due signi- 
fication ; and intimate that the progenitors of future gentility 
sell bceuf a -la-mode [beef a-la-mode], at the sign of the well- dress- 
ed Cow, Rue de Lycee [street of the Lyceum], and that Indian 
shawls may be purchased aux Trois Magots, Rue de la Seine [at 
the Three Mandarins, street of the Seine]. 

Nothing, indeed, in Paris, is more amusing, than the classi- 
cal allusion and sentimental devices of the signs ; and the ab- 
surdity of their application adds much to the ridicule of their ef- 
fect. I observed over a butcher's shop, in the Rue St. Denis, 
the sign of a bouquet of faded pinks, with the device *< Au tendre 
souvenir" [to tender remembrance]. The «< Temptation of St. 
Anthony," in relief, hung next door to the sign of the <* Fille mal- 
gardee" [The ill-guarded daughter]; and " Les Trois Pucelles" 
[The Three Maids]" figured over the windows of an army tai- 
lor, who, to extend his custom, styled himself in large gilt let- 
ters, " Tailleur civil et militaire" [Tailor, civil and military]. 
While St. Angustin promises to " reblanchir les vieilles plumes a 
neuf" [to clean old feathers], " UAnge Gardien" [the Guardian 
Angel] professes « dejaire des envois pour V Stranger" [to go on 
errands for strangers], and the « Religieux" [Monk] offers his 
« Maga%ins des nouveautSs, le tout a juste prix" [Assortment of 
novelties, at the most reasonable prices]. 

" Au bien-venu!" " Aurevenant," *< Aux bons enfans," "Aux 
amis de la paix" [Welcome, Return again, For good children, 



PARIS. 31 

For the friends of peace,] are devices frequently hoisted to se- 
duce custom ; and •• La belie Helene," and the <» Trois Sultanes" 
[The fair Helen, and the Three Sultanas], repeat their charms in 
every quarter to catch the eye, and to interest either the feel- 
ings or the taste of the unwary passenger. Even ethics are 
brought in to the aid of sentiment, and the dearest things in 
Paris are bought, « au petit gain" [at a small profit], or offered 
for sale, *< a la conscience." 

To those accustomed only to the « plain, honest, homely, indus- 
trious, wholesome, brown brick houses" of England, whose ar- 
chitectural taste has not been formed on the marble splendours 
of Italian palaces, the great hotels of Paris must, in their ex- 
terior aspect and interior arrangement, present a very striking 
picture both of magnitude and magnificence. Apparently built 
to image the expected durability of the ancient families who were 
destined to inhabit them, they have, indeed, long survived the 
grandeur and existence of their original proprietors,* and pre- 
serve many evidences of the sumptuous and gorgeous taste of the 
days, in which they were raised. — Painting, sculpture, statuary, 
carving, gilding, tapestry, were all as indispensibly necessary 
to ** monter mi grande hotel" [to get up a great house], as the 
rafts and beams that supported its roof; and Gougeon, Duce- 
reau, Mansard and Coypel were called in as regularly to the 
construction of a noble edifice, as the stone-cutters, bricklayers, 
plasterers, and carpenters who put it together. 

The hotels de Beauvillers, de Soubise, de Rohan, de Beau- 
veau, de Turgot, (once de Sully ; names that go so well to- 
gether) to whose beauties the genius of the Coustous, Brunettis, 
La Maire and Vandervorts have contributed ; with many others 
of equally ancient date, still retain something of their «« original 
splendour," though " shorn of their beams" and more than 
« half obscured," — It is, indeed, difficult to fix upon a place of 
residence in Paris, whose scite or neighbourhood is not illustra- 
ted by some dwelling of former greatness, marked out in those 
numerous Memoires, with which French literature teems, or 
distinguished by some higher character of historic interest. On 
arriving in Paris at the hotel Belgique, 1 found we were close 

* Many of the tapestry hanging's, in the old chateaux and hotels of France, 
record the family pride and sense of the high antiquity of the French no- 
blesse. On the hangings of a room, in the hotel of the Comte de Croy, is re- 
presented a seen;* from the deluge ; and a mm pursuing Noah, with the words, 
"Monami, sauvez les papier s des Croys" [My friend, save the papers of the 
Croysj. On a tapestry, in the chateau of the present Due de Levis, the Vir- 
gin Mary was represented, saying to one of the family who stood bareheaded 
before her : " Mon cousin, coitvrez-vous" [Cousin, put on your hat]; who re- 
plies : '* Ma cousine, c y estpour ma commodit*" [Cousin, it is for my own conve- 
nience.] 



32 PARIS. 

by the hotel de Rambouillet, where the scholastic gallantries of 
the Sorbonne, and the beaux esprits of the Port Royal assisted 
to found those literary coteries, which, though proverbial for 
their pedantry and bad taste, their Trissotins and Vadius's, 
still assembled in their formal groups some of the most distin- 
guished characters, that France ever produced. On removing 
to the hotel D'Orleans in the fauxbourg St. Germain, we found 
our apartment hanging over the gardens, and commanding the 
hotel de La Rochefoucault, where the Encyclopedists so con- 
stantly assembled; where the Voltaires, D'Alemberts and Di- 
derots were united in wit and philosophy, and where the first 
meeting of those Jive friends took place, who formed the subsi- 
diary society of « Les amis des negres" [Friends of the negroes]. 
Gregoire, Mirabeau, de La Rochefoucault, Condorcet, and La 
Fayette. 

It was among some singular coincidences which occurred du- 
ring my residence in France, that within view of this memora- 
ble apartment, I had the honour of receiving in one morning the 
Abbe Gregoire, M, de La Fayette,* the Count G. de La Roche- 
foucault, and his most lovely countess, a relative of Condorcet's, 
and the nephew of Mirabeau, the Count de Lasterie, celebrated 
for having introduced into Jrance the art of engraving on stone.f ' 
Besides those vast and magnificent hotels, which may be 
deemed monuments of faded grandeur and historical glory, many 
of the modern edifices, which rival th< j m in splendour, and sur- 
pass them in taste, have the superadded interest of having been 
raised or inhabited by persons of political eminence, and litera- 
ry notoriety. The Hotel de Beaumarchais, in the fauxbourg St. 
Antonie, immediately opposite to the Bastille, was built at a 
vast expense by the delightful author of one of the most amu- 
sing, philosophical, and entertaining comedies, which any lan- 
guage has produced, Le Manage de Figarro, The Hotel de 
Beaumarchais, erected on the designs of Le Moine, is, I be- 
lieve, meant to be a perfect rus in urbe: for wildernesses, grot- 
tos, subterraneous caverns, and gurgling fountains, are all as- 
sembled in a space, not much larger than that usually assigned 
to the flower-knot of an English villa, and seem dropped, as if 
by accident, in the very centre of whatever is most vulgar, bust- 

* M. G. La Fayette, the only son of General La Fayette, and heir to all his 
virtues. 

f For this purpose a smooth compact stone, having a conchoidal fracture, 
effervescing with acids, hut containing a large portion of argil, is brought 
from Germany. The subject is drawn at once upon its polished surface, with 
a crayon composed of materials unaffected by nitric acid, to which acid the 
uncovered part is afterwards exposed: the process, therefore, is the reverse 
of etching, and leaves the subject, in relief, above the general surface of the 
plate- 



PARIS. 33 

ling, noisy and coarse in Paris ; where the silence of its her- 
mitage is disturbed by the cry of "habits, galon" [clothes, gro- 
ceries], and a butcher's shop salutes the eye, which emerges (rum 
the dark recesses of a gloomy cavern. 

In the garden of this Vaueluse of the Boulevards, is a very 
pretty temple, raised to the memory of Voltaire ; and under tiie 
shade of a willow, marked by an urn filled with the golden flowers 
of /'immorfeZ/e [amaranth], repose the ashes of Beaumarchais him. 
self. In passing over this little spot of earth, all that is spiritual, 
buoyant, li.srht and fanciful, in the aerial character of the little 
Cherubin, the « maudit page" [the cursed page], of the piquante 
Suzanne, the adroit Figarro, and the feminine countess, occurred 
to my memory, and formed a melancholy contrast with the as- 
sociations of the tomb. 

The Hotel de Beaumarchais, without being very large, con- 
tains many suites of rooms painted in fresco, but too small and 
too low for the English standard of handsome apartments. The 
salon a manger [the dining-room] is remarkable for the double 
flight of steps, which lead to it from the salon de compagnie [the 
drawing room], and for the fountain of clear water with which 
it is refreshed. In one of the windows, which looks immediately 
over the ruins of the Bastille, stands a perfect model of that 
formidable prison, formed out of one of the stories of its own foun- 
dation. The Hotel de Beaumarchais is not open to the public. 
—•It is occupied by Mad. de Beaumarchais, whose advanced age 
and infirm state of health do not permit her to receive company ; 
and I owe the pleasure I derived from my visit to the dwelling 
of a m:*n, whose talents I had so long admired, to the politeness 
of his accomplished daughter, Madame de la Rue, who, if I may 
judge from the eloquence du billet, which accompanied her invi- 
tation, is tiie legitimate heiress to much of the playful wit, which 
distinguished the works of her celebrated father. 

The Hotel de la Reyniere, independent of the splendour of its 
arrangements, and the elegance of its furniture, will always have 
a claim to interest among the professors of the science of savoir- 
vivre [good-eating], as being the house of the author of the cele- 
brated " Jllmanachdes Gourmands" [Glutton's Almanack]. This 
beautiful hotel was built by Monsieur de la Reyniere, father of 
its present owner, a rich fermier- general [farmer general], the 
rival of the La Foplinieres, and other luxurious and opulent 
financiers of the Plare-Vendome. The elegance and magnificence 
of this hotel, its superb furniture and rich gilding, give a tole- 
rably just idea of the sumptuousness and splendour of that class 
of men, whose office and wealth arose out of those corrupt insti- 
tutions, which impoverished thousands, to support a few in 
wanton extravagance, and inordinate luxury. 

PART II. F 



34 PARIS. 

It was here old La Reyniere put tlio.se principles into prac- 
tice, which his son has since so wittily resolved into systems, and 
of whose suppers it was said, by his aristocratical guests, «• on 
les mange, mais onne les digere pas" [they are eaten but not di- 
gested]. An anecdote is told, which places the egotism of these 
noble convives of the old farmer-general in a very humorous 
point of view. Monsieur de la Reyniere, after having long 
united in his own person, the two lucrative places of administra- 
tes des postes and fermier- general, in which he was supported 
by the influence of certain friends at court, whom he repaid by 
his dinners and suppers, found himself suddenly reduced to the 
alternative of resigning one of those places, and complained to 
his noble friends of the diminution of his revenue. « Eh! mais, 
man Dieu!" replied the Due de * * * #, who was present, 
H cela ne fait pas une grande difference dans votrc fortune. C'est 
un million a mettre d fonds perdns, et nous nen viendrons pas moins 
souper che% vous." [Kh ! but my God, that can make no great dif- 
ference in your fortune. It is but a million to set down as lost, 
and we will come and sup with you all the same.] 

Monsieur Grimod de la Reyniere adds to the inheritance of 
the paternal talent for the gastronomic art,* a peculiar humour, 
all his own, and as it was said of him by the wits of Paris, some 
years back, — " II alloit d IHmmortalite par trois routes differentes ; 
par ses livres, par ses actions, et par ses soupers." [He is going to 
immortality by three different roads : by his books, by his actions, 
and by his suppers]. This literary Apicius made his debut, by a 
pai'ody on a work of Condorcet's ; and established his reputation 
for wit and cookery, by his « Almanack des Gourmands. 9 * tie, 
however, soon left the practice of the art in which he excelled, 
and contented himself with furnishing rules, which he preferred 
exemplifying at any other person's expense than his own. M. 
de la Reyniere, therefore, has long resigned one of his paths to 
immortality; and though he gives new editions of his work, no 
longer illustrates its theories at his table, for he gives no more 
suppers; nor holds any more *< JureS de gustateurs" [Juries of 
tasters]. Mons. de la Reyniere was not in Paris, during my 
residence there, but many anecdotes of his singular humour and 
espiegleriej [vivacity] were repeated to me, by those who knew 

* The grandfather of M. de la Reyniere was also celebrated for his gour- 
mundise [gluttony], and the Bumptiousness of his table- His death was cha- 
racteristic as that of Anacreon : he died of a surfeit, got by eating too freely 
of turkies' livers. 

f Mad. de la Reyniere, the mother of M. Grimod, is still alive, and occupies 
a wing of the hotel. She is of the hunte-noblcsse [high nobility], her late hus- 
band was rather of a fpturier [plebeian] extvacuon It was among ihe amuse- 
ments of his son to invite, on the same day, to dinner, the noble relatives of 
his high-born mother, with some of the bourgeois kinsmen [city kinsmen] of 



PARIS. 35 

him well. I had an opportunity of visiting his splendid hotel, 
under circumstances that highly contributed to its brilliancy and 
magnificence ; for it is now the temporary town residence of the 
Duke of Wellington. 

It was in this hotel that his Grace gave a splendid ball, on the 
occasion of the marriage of the Due de Berri, which, from the 
circufhstance of all the guests coming fresh from the grand cou- 
vert [grand supper] at the Thuilleries, in their splendid court 
dresses, together with the illuminations of the hotel and gar- 
dens, in honour of the event, produced an effect of brilliancy and 
niagnificenee to which description can do no possible justice. 
In the arrangements of this beautiful fete, in the delicacy* plen- 
tcousness, and variety of the table, the abundant, genuine hospi- 
tality of England, the simplicity and chastity of its taste were ne- 
ver better represented. The melange [mixture] of al! parties, all 
nations, which appeared in those rooms, closely associated under 
the eye of the distinguished person, who so materially contributed 
to effect this moral and political fusion, was a singular picture 
for philosophy to gaze on, and even for common-place observa- 
tion to pause over and examine. It was curious to see in this 
congress of beauty and fashion, to which so many countries lent 
some of its lovely representatives, the belles of Berlin, Peters- 
burg, Rome, London, Paris, Edinburgh, and Dublin — -all as- 
sembled under the*Same roof. Buonapartist-generals, waltzing 
in close embrace with pretty royalistes enragees [violent royalists], 
and revolutionary senators linked in a chaine-entiere [a complete 
chain] with w#m-partners, formed the best illustration of the 
" Holy Mliance" that could possibly be given. And perhaps it 
might have been as well for the interests of Europe, if its af- 
fairs had been thus settled in a country dance in Paris, instead 
of being gossiped over in council at Vienna; if a quadrille had 
been substituted for a congress, and pretty women had mingled 
their entre-chats and demi-courvettes with the solemn motions of 
young diplomatists, and the slow arrangements of expediency 
ministers. 

I remember, that in the bustling and press of this brilliant 
crowd, I was forced to lean against a table for support, on which 
rested the historical bust of Buonaparte. Before me stood the 
conqueror of Waterloo, in conversation with Marshal Marmontj 



iiis father; presenting them to each other with "Monsieur le Due, this is our 
cousin, the baker ;" or, "our uncle, the butcher." He also piqued himself 
on bringing professed enemies together at his table— Talma, with his severe 
critic Geoffroi; Mad. Mars, with her rival, Mad. Le Vert, 8cc. &c- &c He 
once hired out coaches to vex his father, who refused him money, and is so 
far from objecting to the notoriety of his gambols, that he is himself the first 
to mention and laugh at them. 



36 PARIS. 

on either side the Turkish ambassador, in Eastern costume, and 
Pozzo di Borgho, in his Russia% orders ! — What a combina- 
tion ! During the whole night groups equally incongruous and 
extraordinary were continually repeated. 

The hotel de Sommariva is enriched by some of the finest pic- 
tures of the old Italian masters, and some of the most splendid 
specimens of the genius of modern artists. But it is. the Terpsi- 
chore and Magdeieine of Canova, that lend the hotel de Sommariva 
its principal interest, if the taste, politeness, and hospitality of 
Mons. de Sommariva himself be excepted. The Terpsichore is so 
highly estimated, even by its unrivalled artist, that it is the only 
one of. his works to which he has put his name. The charm of 
this beautiful statue is, its life ! — the mysterious art, by which 
the Praxiteles of modern days has communicated the appearance 
of motion to what is motionless, and lent vitality to marble ! 
Terpsichore, with the form of a Grace and the head of a Hebe, 
seems almost to illustrate the art over which she presides ; and 
I should have felt much less surprise to have seen her spring 
from the pedestal, which her delicate foot Scarcely touches, than 
I have occasionally experienced from the unexpected agility of 
some human elephant, moving its ponderous weight by an organic 
impulsion, in which life and will seemed to have no part.* Still, 
however, with all her beauty, all her life, all her grace, the love- 
ly Terpsichore is more than rivalled by the grref-worn form of the 
penitent Magdeieine, A small apartment, hung with dark silk, 
enshrines this marble wonder, which expresses in every form, 
every curve, every fibre, the wasting touch of time and wo; on 
whose cheek the tear seems lucid, or, at most, but half congeal- 
ed ; whose eye swims upon the gaze, and whose limbs, symme- 
trical even in decay, exhibit a beautiful skeleton, to which the 
delicate musrle seems scarcely to adhere. The rough so'e of the 
small foot tells of many a dreary step, trod in penitence and 
hardship, while the still rounded shoulder survives the wreck of 
other beauties, and the sensibility of the drooping countenain e 
is the expression of one, who deserved to "be forgiven,-— for she 
loved much." — Whoever can look upon this splendid specimen of 
the noblest of the arts without emotion, must have more of mar- 
ble in their composition, than the statues of Canova! 

There is nothing M. Sommariva seems to prize so much in his 
collection, as a head of Christ, by Guido, which is framed in a 
box, and kept under lock and key. This saintly, sickly head, 

* The head of Terpsichore is said to be that of the beautiful sister of the 
ex-Emperor, Pauline, Princess of Borghese, whose charms have afforded a 
study to most of the celebrated painters and statuaries of the day. As well as 
1 remember, Mons. Sommariva told me this was not the case, the whole being a 
beau-ide'iil of a genius destined to immortality- 



PARIS. 37 

with its livid colouring and melancholy expression, reminded me 
of a phrase of Poussin's, that he "did not like t<> see Christ 
always painted as a Pert Douillet." It is, however, reckoned 
the perfection of the art. — On the subject of the heads of Christ, 
M. Denon makes a very curious observation, which has added 
to their interest with me, inducing me to consider them as ge- 
nuine portraits. Speaking of the Jews in Egypt, he says, « Les 
beaux, surtout Its jeunes, rappellent le caractere de tele qut la pein- 
ture a conserve a Jesus Christ; ce qui prouveroit quit est de tradi- 
tion, et rfa pas pour epoque le qiuitorzieme siecle, et le renouvelle- 
ment des arts* [the heads of their handsomest young men, have 
much of the character which painting has transmitted to us for 
that of Jesus Christ; this may go to prove that the revival of the 
arts in the fourteenth century is traditionary.] 

'[lie hotel de Craufurd, one of the handsomest in Paris, is so 
well known to foreigners, and partirularly to the English, 
through the hospitality and courteousf attention to all strangers, 
of its owners, that it might be deemed sufficient, perhaps, merely 
to mention it, if its elegant saloons were not better known to their 
passing guests, than its curious and interesting picture-gallery. 
— Madame Craufurd must, therefore, forgive me, if I pass by 
her superb chambre a coucher [bed-chamber], with its white and 
gold draperies, its porcelaine tables, and silver toilette, with all 
the fairy suite belonging to it, the salle de bain, the boudoir, cabi- 
net de toilette [the bathing-room, the boudoir, the dressing-room], 
and lovely orangerie, — and hasten, with all the Memoirs of Louis 
the XlVtVs day under my arm, to the gallery which contains 
the portraits of the wits and beauties of his court; the heroines 
of the Fronde, and even some of the brave friends of Henry IV. 
and the fair mistresses of his predecessors. Among these, the 
heroic Jgnes Sorel takes a chronological lead. She is dressed 
in the simple costume of a peasant, extremely like that worn by 
the women of Normandy in the present day. La belle des belles 
[the fairest of the fair] is not beautiful, but her countenance is 
expressive of the most perfect goodness, and I should rather say 
she was La bonne des bonnes [the best of the good]. An old por- 

* Voyage en Egypte. 

f The Duke of Wellington is a frequent visitant at the hotel de Craufurd, 
as indeed are almost all the English of note or rank. The first night I visited 
the hotel tit Craufurd, I sat next to a very lovely and attractive young lady, 
who talked with so much anxiety of carrying an infant child across the chan- 
nel, (as she was going to England) that 1 thought her some amiable little mo- 
ther in private life, who had never before stepped be)ond the domestic circle 
of a middle rank, until somebody questioned her about "one of the Queens, 
her awits " — This young and amiable mother was the lovely Princess de Ester- 
hazy, who has since become so popular in England, by graces, formed to at- 
tract every where, and by virtues, which it most peculiarly belongs to Eng- 
land to cherish and to appreciate. 



38 PARIS - 

trait of Diana de Poitiers, is most remarkable for the allusive 
device prefixed to it, from Psalm xlii. <-As the heart panteth, 
&c. &c. &r." The French missals, in former times, were usual- 
ly as much a breviary of love, as devotion ; — and Guernier illus- 
trated the prayer book of the Duke de Guise, by drawing all the 
beauties of the court, most famous for their gallantry, as virgin 
martyrs, and canonised saints. 

An original portrait of Marie de Beauvilliers, the lovely nun, 
and afterward abbess, of Montmartre, who was carried off from 
her convent by Henry IV. and whom he describes, in the poem 
attributed to him, of I' Jmour Philosophic, by 

" Son habit blanc, 

Son scapulaire — et le rang 1 , 
Qu'tlle tient dedans son cloitre-" 
[Her white dress, her scapulary, and the rank which she holds in her clois- 
ter.] 

This picture, though taken from its celebrated original at the 
age of eighty, exhibits great remains of personal beauty, not a 
little set off by the monastic dress. A head of the great, and un- 
fortunate Due de Biron, who was decapitated by Henry IV. 
whose cause he had so ably defended. The countenance is very 
fine, and marked by an air of high distinction. A few da^s be- 
fore I saw this portrait, I was introduced to his descendant, the 
Due de Biron Gontaut; but I could trace no other resemblance 
between him and his illustrious ancestor, than that they both 
wore very long gold ear-rings! 

The justly celebrated Madame de Stael, a good, rather than 
an intelligent, countenance, which gives no indication of the au- 
thor of one of the most amusing and spirited Memoires that ever 
were written. Madame de Stael is here painted, as she painted 
herself, " en buste." 

Madame des Houlieres, too beautiful by half for an authoress 
— and looking more lovely things, than she ever wrote, notwith- 
standing the elegance of her Idylliums. Madame de Ramhouil- 
let, handsome, but still that sort of precise beauty, one would look 
for in the foundress of her own bel esprit coteries. 

The celebrated Hortense Mancini, Dutchess of Mazarine, who 
died in exile, and in indigence, in England. In the large dark 
eyes of this lovely person, all the ambition of her restless and in- 
triguing character is strongly traced. 

The handsome Duchessc de Sforze, surrounded by a number 
of those ugly little dogs, of which Madame de Sevigne writes in 
such raptures, when she receives one dressed in rose-coloured 
ribands, and curled and perfumed, like a young abbe commen- 
dataire [commendatory] of the old regime. 



PARIS. 39 

Madame dc Retz, mentioned in the Memoirea of the Cardinal, 
infinitely more lively than Mademoiselle de Fontange, the " chat 
gris" [grey cat], who forms a pendant to her ; both by Mig- 
nard. 

Tlie Counters d'Armanac, on horseback, with a man's cravat 
on her neck, and a wreath of flowers on her head: an admirable 
specimen of the style of portrait painting of the day. 

Madame de Longueville, a most incomparable beauty, the 
loveliest of all the heroines of the Fronde; and with e\es that 
fairly excused the Due de la Rochefoucault's wish to obey their 
commands, •• a faire la guerre an Rov 9 [to make war oh the 
king], &x. &c. It was to this splendid beauty that the graver 
charms of Madame de la Fayette succeeded, in the heart of the 
author, •• dcsMaximes." 

An original picture of Mad. de la Yaliere, by Mignard, taken 
in 1673, very fair, and very insipid; totally deficient in that 
strong expression of countenance, marked in her picture by Le 
Brun, taken as a JIagdeleine, which, in making her trample on 
the •< pomps and vanities of the world," gives her the air of a 
tragedy actress, in the act of taking off ber ornaments, after 
her part is over. There is in that famous picture of Le Brim's, 
a robustness in the figure of the fair Magdeleine, with a force 
and energy of expression in the features, which indicate resent- 
ment, rather than repentance, and lead to the conviction that 
Mad. de la Yaliere did not consent to become « the spouse of 
God," until she had lost all hopes of remaining mistress to the 
King. This was, indeed, very near the truth; for to the last 
moment she U turn'd, and turn'd, and was a woman still," and 
only remained quiet in her convent, when she was no longer 
solicited to return to court. 

A f»ll-Ien.g;th picture of her successor, Madame de Montespan, 
represents one of the most perfectly beautiful persons, that art 
ever designed. In the sweet expression of her innocent mouth, 
nothing of the " esprit de Morttmarte" [the spirit of Montemart] 
seems to hover; and in her gentle countenance it is impossible 
to trace that violent and haughty spirit, which royal authority 
could not govern, and which the art of her shrewd successor- 
could alone undermine and subdue. 

Madam de Maintenon, holding the hand of the little Due de 
Maine, is a perfect Hebe; bearing not the least resemblance to 
another original portrait, by Mignard, at a more advanced age, 
in which her sedate but comely countenance expresses all the 
good sense and ability of her character. 

Madame de Sevigne, a beautiful woman, and infinitely supe- 
rior in personal attraction to her daughter, whose picture gives 
the impression of a cold precise character, which I believe this 
fair disciple of Descartes really possessed. 



Q PARIS. 

Besides the very interesting collection of the Beauties of 
Louis the Fourteenth's day, the hotel de Craufurd is enriched 
with a few valuable original pictures ; among which, a head by 
Tiziano, in bistre; the Judgment of Paris, by Rubens; and an 
admirable portrait of a Squinting Boy, by Lucca Giordini, are 
highly estimated. 

A portrait of Descartes, by F. Hals, gives the impression of 
an extraordinary character ! The head seems cast out of the 
common model of nature ; the brows are perfectly angular, and 
the countenance marked, at, once, by genius and deformity. 

Philip Poisson, the comic actor and author, laughing and 
showing his teeth, is not to be viewed with a grave face. — But 
among all that is most interesting in this valuable collection, 
may be reckoned the fine portrait of La Bruyere, writing his 
celebrated maxim of « Lecontraire du bruit qui court" [The con- 
trary of the current report], &c. He seems just to have raised 
his head and hand from the paper; the countenance is pale, 
thoughtful, and full of expression. — A fine picture of the late 
Emperor, by Robert Le Fevre, painted in 1810, wants only the 
consecrating touch of time, to give it its full value and consi- 
deration. 

.AC ' ■. , 4g» , ", JO* - > ■#■ ' «te, '- ^fc, 4T» 4fr .tfc - Jfc Jfc 

-jfi *j^ «^» -jf ^ *fc #75* ~ft ^ -^. 

The hotel de Borghese, the former residence of the lovely 
Princess Pauline, the ex-Emperor's youngest sister, is now the 
dwelling of the English ambassador. But, its tenants only ex- 
cepted, nothing is changed; it preserves entire the original taste 
and splendor of the magnificent palaces granted to the imperial 
family, by their singular and munificent chief. It is said, that 
pride and affection went hand in hand in the riches and splendor 
lavished by Napoleon on his relatives ; but all that his family 
vanity and boundless prodigality could do for them, was insuffi- 
cient to satisfy their demands on his affection and generosity. 
« Ces coquines ld 9 " he observed to a confidential person, to 
whom he was complaining of some exorbitant request of one of 
his sisters, «« Ces coquines Id croicnt, que je les ai prive des Mens 
du feu Roi notre pcre" [These rogues believe, that I havr de- 
prived them of the wealth of the late king our father]. Still. 
however, these requests, though alway the subject of complaint, 
were rarely refused. 

". Each pendant in their ear shall be a province." 

I was present at the sale of the palace of Cardinal Fcsch. 
The multiplicity of his collection of statuary, pictures, mosaics, 
bronzes, marbles, &c. was sufficient to overwhelm the imagina- 
tion. Relays of furniture, chairs that seemed of massive gold. 



PARIS. 41 

beds that appeared made only to excite wonder, all presented a 
combination of wealth and splendor, which, I believe, is only to 
be found in France, and to which the treasures of all the con- 
tinental nations of Europe once contributed. 

In the hotel de Borghese, the state chambre-d-coucher [bed- 
chamber] of the fair princess, is now a sort of audience-chamber 
for the British embassy. The splendid canopy of crimson vel- 
vet and gold, which shaded the slumbers of the prettiest woman 
in France, is now the representative of the English throne; 
and in the ruelle [at the bedside], where the priestesses of 
fashion once assembled round their idol at her rSveil [awaken- 
ing], to decide on the flow of a ringlet, or to obtain the exclusive 
patent of a cap, diplomacy now unravels its <« many -coloured 
web of good and ill together," and the gravest heads in Europe 
are drawn together to balance political relations, where the love- 
liest once debated on the power and influence 

** Of quips, and cranksj and wreathed smiles." 

I recal with infinite pleasure to my recollection the hotel de 
Victoire, and the accomplished circle I found collected round its 
graceful and elegant mistress, the Countess Lefebvre-Desnou- 
ettes.* This beautiful little pavillion, as it now stands in the 
midst of its blooming garden, and in the most fashionable quar- 
ter of Paris, was presented by the French nation to the modest 
conqueror of Marengo, on his return from the most splendid of 
his Italian victories.] Here General Buonaparte resided, until 
he took possession, in his consular dignity, of the royal apart- 
ments of the Thuilleries; and here he received that decree of 
the Council of Ancients, which was the " swelling prologue to 
the imperial theme :" 

" Glamis and Thane of Cawdor; 
" The greatest is behind !" 

The hotel de Victoire had been presented by Napoleon to his 
fair cousin, the Comtesse Desnouettes, and it retains all the ele- 

* The Comtesse Desnouettes lived in great retirement, during my residence 
in Paris, in consequence of the exile of her husband. He has been since re- 
called by the king, and has resumed his titles, as Marshal of France, and Duke 
of Dantzic.** 

t " I saw him,'* says Miss Williams, speaking of his reception at the Direc- 
tory, on his return from Italy, " I saw him decline placing himself in the chair 
of state, which had been prepared for him ; and seem as if he wished to escape 
from the general burst of applause." 

** Lady Morgan has confounded Marshal Lefebwe the duke of Dantxic, -with 
Lieutenant General Count Lefebvre Desnouettes, now in America.— T. 
PAJRT il. • 



4$ PARIS. 

gant draperies and furniture which belonged to it, when it was 
presented to himself. Peculiar taste and studied elegance, ra- 
ther than any effort at splendor and magnificence, characterise 
this pretty bijou. Draperies of lilac and primrose satin, fasten- 
ed by his own brilliant and fallacious star, are surmounted by 
arabesque frizes of great delicacy and beauty, and the furniture 
is appropriately elegant and simple. 

The hotel of the Baron Denon contains the most curious, va- 
ried, and singular < ollections of art and antiquities in the pos- 
session of any private person in Paris. These treasures, occu- 
pying a suite of six rooms, are disposed in the superb armoires 
of Boule, which once belonged to the apartments of Louis XIV. 
or are placed on pedestals drawn from the ruins of Greece, and 
on marbles from among the columns of Egypt. Pictures, medals, 
bronzes, drawings, with Chinese, Indian, and Egyptian antiqui- 
ties and curiosities, are all arranged in an order at once philo- 
sophical and chronological, with the intention of throwing a 
more steady light upon remote times, and of illustrating, by a 
few curious specimens, the progress of the human mind. In his 
collection of pictures, Monsieur Denon seems to have been 
more guided by taste, than aided by fortune. It contains but 
few of those pictures to which a series of ages has attached an 
enormous value, but he pointed out to me a waterfall, by Rhuis- 
dal ; a portrait of Moliere, by Sebastian Bourdon; a head of 
Parmegiano, by that great painter himself; as being of singular 
beauty and value: as also some pieces by Schedoni, and three 
pictures, by Andrea Schiavone, « Tithon and Aurora ; « Diana 
discovering the frailty of Calista" and an " Aurora awaking." 
Besides the rarity of these three little pictures, the elegance of the 
drawing, strictly resembling the designs of Parmegiano, whom 
Schiavone imitated and admired, and the richness of colouring 
peculiar to the Venetian school, render them very precious. A 
little picture by Callot, painted on lapis-lazuli, is curious and 
valuable ; and a Madonna, by Guercino, carelessly giving her 
son to the arms of Joseph, that she may listen to an angel who is 
playing on a violin, has a character of naivete and originality, 
quite as interesting as the execution is beautiful and masterly. 

Among a small, but most valuable collection of the most an- 
cient pictures extant, is one by Martino di Messina, the first 
who painted in oil ; the portrait of a bishop, by Giotto ; a Mag- 
gatio ; a Bellino ; and a composition by Fra. Bartolomi, one of 
Raphael's first masters. 

Among the modern pictures are, the head of a Greek lady, by 
Madame le Brun ;* a picture of Rosalba, by herself; and a sin- 

* Madame le Brun is still living at Paris, enjoying great reputation for her 
talents, and the highest esteem for her character- She had the kindness to 



PARIS. 43 

gularly characteristic portrait of M. Denon, by Robert Le 
Fevre. 

In presenting to my admiration a small cabinet picture, an 
holy family by Bourdon, which, he said, might pass for a Ca- 
racci, and another by Vateau, M. Denon made an observation, 
which, as coming from the celebrated direeteur du Musee Fran- 
qais [director of the French Museum], is too valuable not to be 
cited in his own words — « Ces deux petites pieces montrent qu'il 
ne faut jamais juger avec prejuge d'un peintre, avant a 9 avoir vu 
ce qu 9 il a fait de plus beau ; puisque dans ces deux tableaux on 
trouve, mcme avec le mauvais style du siecle, la couleur sublime 
de Titien, le Jinis precieux de Leonardi de Vinci* et V elegance de 
Farmegiano" [These two little pieces shew that we ought never 
to judge of a painter with prejudice, unless we have seen his best 
works; since in these two pictures, in spite of the defective style 
of the age, we find the sublime colouring of Titian, the exquisite 
finish of Leonardo da Vinci, and the elegance of Parmegiano], 
It would appear, from this critique of M. Denon's, that the 
painters of Louis XIV. did not want genius, but liberty — and it 
is probable, that these two pieces were carelessly thrown off, by r 
Vateau and Bourdon, in a moment of leisure and freedom snatch- 
ed from their hired labours at Versailles and the Thuilleries ; 
when they were relieved from blue silk robes, and full-blown 
roses — from Apollos and Graces — from Monsieur Le Brun, and 
Louis le Grand ! 

In the arrangement of his little collection of pictures, M. 
Denon has adopted a chronological order, with respect to the 
ancient masters, which presents a very beautiful history of the 
progress of the art. He begins with a suite of enamels of the 
thirteenth century, commencing with La Robier, and finishing 
with the splendid miniatures of M. Augustin, whom he considers 
as one of the ablest artists of the day. His collection of medals, 
engravings, and drawings, is governed by the same spirit of 
illustration, which adds so much to their interest, and which has 
always in view the progress of the arts, and the civilisation of 
man. The medals are divided into classes; those of the Greek 
cities, of the Grecian kings, of the Roman republic, of the 
Roman emperors; — the decline of the art, in the middle ages; 
its revival, in the fifteenth century, in Tuscany, by Pisane ; in 
France, under Francis I. ; in Spain and in England ; — its degra- 
dation under Louis XIV. and Louis XV., a period which does 
not present one medal worth citing, or collecting. 

invite me, through the Marquise de Vilette, to see her collection, when it 
should have undergone some new arrangements, for she was then changing 
her place of residence- But I was obliged to leave Paris, before I could uvail 
myself of her politeness, and gratify my own cariosity, by seeing so celebrated 
and distinguished a personage- 



44 PARIS. 

Monsieur Dcnon, himself, may be said to have been the reviver 
of this splendid art in France, under the iate Emperor; and his 
own series of medals, which commemorate the extraordinary 
events of that short, but wondrous career, will one day claim 
from posterity a still more passionate tribute of admiration, than 
that, which the cold-blooiied judgment of cotemporary obser- 
vation does not, even now, withhold from them. It struck me, 
(but I know not how far I may be right) that the peculiar excel- 
lence of the designs of M. Denon's own medals, was grace and 
Jinesse ; a sort of moral elegance, in the conception, and a sin- 
gular delicacy and harmony, in the composition, which pecu- 
liarly belong to the tone of genius, and character of the man 
himself. In any part of the world, that the medal, struck for 
the marriage of the Empress Maria Louisa, and the passage on 
grace,* in the description of the Egyptian Mma, had been shown 
me, 1 should have discovered the particular verve of Denon, 
though I had never read his works, nor seen his engravings ; 
but judged of his genius only from his conversation. 

In looking over M. Denon's rich and extensive collection of 
medals, which I did frequently, during my residence in Paris, 
sometimes with the benefit of his own observations, and some- 
times with that of foreign artists, or English virtuosi, I was 
most particularly struck by the beauty and excellence of some 
of the specimens, which I admired, without any rule or autho- 
rity, save what nature lent. Among the number, which uni- 
formly possessed a singular attraction for me, was an ancient 
Syra< usan medal, which, through the staining tints of centuries, 
presented the figure of the nymph Arethusa. Never did art, or 
nature, create a more beautiful form ; all the follies of the old 
river-god, Alpheus, were to be forgotten, or forgiven, in con- 
templating this graven image of his mistress. The heads of 
Lysimachus— 4)f Berenice, wife of one of the Ptolemys, and a 
Nero, struck me also as singularly admirable. The fine head 
of Antiochus Euergetes is curious, a being a perfect resemblance 
of all the medals struck of Buonaparte. 

The collection of bronzes, which M. Denonf brought himself 

* The passage here alluded to is too beautiful, to need an apology for citing 
it — " La grace qui nait de la supplesse des mouvemens, de Vac cord harmonieu.i 
d'un ensemble pur/ait ; la grace, cette portion divine, est la mime dans le monde 
entier ; C'est la propriety de la nature, fgalement departie a tons les etres, qui 
jouissent de la plenitude de leur existence, quel soit le climat qui les a vus naitre." 
Voyage en Egypie. 

[The grace which springs from the agility of her motions, accords harmo- 
niously with a perfect whole; grace, that divine gift, is the same throughout 
the world; it is the property of nature, equally distributed to all beings who 
enjoy ih< fulness of their existence, whatever may be the climate which has 
given them birth.] 

| iVI Denon was received, as a sculptor, in the academy of Florence, for the 
beautiful little figure of a Uacchuntc, the work of his own chisel. 



PARIS. 45 

from Egypt, some of which he has illustrated in the plates of his 
great work, are rare and curious, and prove the high and unri- 
valled perfection, to which the Egyptians had carried the art. 

Among his Grecian bronzes, he most values a beautiful little 
figure of Jupiter Stator ; but he considers the specimens he has 
obtained of the Chinese workmanship, in this art, as equal, if 
not superior, to every other. Many Roman bronzes, discovered 
in France, both figures and articles of domestic utility, are to 
be found in this singular collection; and a bronze image, of the 
time of Charlemagne, proves how totally the art had then de- 
clined in Europe, by its hands of or-molv, and eyes of precious 
stones, no unusual specimen of the taste of those barbarous 
times, when the arts were worse than lost. All that Japan and 
China ever produced in its peculiar manufactures, of precious, 
rare, and curious ; all that could satisfy the exorbitant longings 
of the china-fancying ladies, of the Spectator's day, turn the head 
of a petite-maftresse, or out- run the desires of the spoiled child, 
who, in exhausting every possible form of toy, cried at last for 
the moon, may be found in the apartments and splendid armoires 
[cabinets] of M. Denon. 

Porrelain vases, of every form, size, colour, and age; from 
the black china, whose antiquity goes beyond date, down to the 
transparent produce of the present day- — bine cats, that once sold 
for a thousand crowns a piece, and green bowls, that Confucius 
might have dipped his long nails in; Mandarin beaux, and Bra- 
minical gods, josses and pagodas, bamboo magots [monkeys], 
crackled china toads, flowers that resemble nature, and animals 
that resemble nothing; with Japanese boxes, vases, and tem- 
ples; India cabinets and ivory screens, specimens of fill agree, 
and wax-work curiosities, two thousand years old, and ingenious 
works of' taste, fresh from the hands of modern artists, — are 
here all found admirably arranged, and curiously assembled. 

But in all this various collection, which it must have taken so 
much time, taste, knowledge, and money to have obtained, and 
to which chance and circumstances must have favourably contri- 
buted, there is nothing so much prized, by the enlightened and 
elegant collector, as his portfolios of the original designs of all 
the greatest masters— the richest and most valuable collection 
of this description, supposed to exist. These portfolios are divi- 
ded into schools .-—the Italian, Flemish, and French ; and, among 
their immense and various contents, include fifty of the original 
drawings of Parmegiano, most of which have been engraved, 
and which have been purchased, at an enormous price ; eighty, 
by Guercino ; ten, by Raphael ; ten, by Julio Romano ; and a 
large collection of the drawings of the pupils of the Raphael 
school, with some more or less of all the great masters of the 



/ 



46 PARIS. 



Italian and Flemish schools. These transcripts of the prima 
inten&ione of superior genius, struck off in all the fervour of 
first and ardent inspiration, bearing the impress of its freshness 
and its force, always appear to me more precious and interest- 
ing, than the long studi d, long-laboured task, that time and 
judgment work into fwttltlessness. It is like the sublime com- 
mand, « Let there be light; and there was light .'" — Touch, tint, 
and combination might more finely perfect the finished picture ; 
but in these first conceptions of these bold sketches, the mark 
divine appears — ther mysterious cause of genius, perceptible, but 
unguessed at, undefined ! 

Among this curious collection, I discovered some objects out 
of ail rule of classification. A small human foot, in perfect 
preservation, found among the royal tombs of Egypt, and once 
perhaps numbered among the charms of some lovely Berenice, 
or Cleopatra. Two thousand years, at least, have passed away, 
since it pressed the carpet of the divan, or glided amidst the 
orange-groves of the Delta. This is the delicate little foot which 
M. Denon describes in his travels, as being, w ithout doubt, from 
its symmetry, «< le pied d'une jeune femme, d'une princesse, d'un 
itre charmant, dont la chaussure n'av ait jamais altere les formes , 
et dont les formes etaient parfaites" [The foot of a young woman, 
of a princess, of a charming being, a foot whose form had never 
been altered by a shoe, and whose symmetry was perfect]. The 
model of the beautiful little hand of the Princ ss Borghese, might 
form a pendant [counterpart] for this exquisitely formed foot. But 
from every image of the loveliness and the graces, conjured up far 
by these samples of female beauty, in times and regions so re- 
motely distant, is another non-descript relic, which the all-grasp- 
ing talent of collecting has associated with so much of what is 
curious and interesting in nature and art; the mask of Robes- 
pierre, taken off his face ere one bad trace of the mind it indicat- 
ed, had faded into the inexpressive lividness of death. It is im- 
possible to look at this faithful model of a frightful original, 
without shuddering. It is not the countenance of a splendid 
villain, urged to a crime by an ambition that ennobles it ; it is 
the face of hireling villany, of vulgar atrocity, of inaccessible 
brutality, unenlightened even by the intelligence of cunning. 
It is not even the face of the <* best of cut-throats," but of a bun- 
gler, whose dulness might have marred the act his cruelty sought 
to perpetrate. It, was in showing me this disgusting mask, that 
M. Denon related to me an anecdote illustrative of the day, and 
the tyrant that ruled it, which struck me as particularly cu- 
rious. 

When the French Revolution first broke out, M. Denon was 
an envoijc at one of the Italian courts, and he remained in Italy 



paris. 4y 

until the publication of a decree by the French Republic, which 
proscribed for ever those emigrants, who did not return within 
a stated period, Returned to France, he was compelled to de- 
pend for subsistence upon that talent, he had hitherto cultivated 
for amusement, and the beauty of his compositions procured him 
an order from the government, to make some designs f«r les 
fastes republicains [les fast's — shews, pageants]. He was direct- 
ed to attend a committee for that purpose, which assembled at 
the Thuilleries, the seat of government, at two hours after mid- 
night ; for the hours of darkness and repose were then the 
chosen periods of council and activity. At this solemn season 
of the night, M. Denon reached the palace ; it v\as silent and 
gloomy ; an armed guard straggled though its half-lighted and 
spacious appartments. The anti-room of the council chamber 
was occupied by republican officers, fierce and dark as mid- 
night conspirators ; a huissier [door-keeper] in waiting had or- 
ders to receive the diplomatic artist, and to conduct him to a 
particular apartment. 

Left alone in a large dimly -lighted room, Denon discovered 
he was occupying a silent space, that once resounded to every 
tone of gaiety and pleasure. It was the apartment of the beau- 
tiful Marie Antoinette. Twenty years back, he had himself 
served there, as gentilhomme ordinaire to Louis XV. While he 
was " chewing the end of sweet and bitter recollection," a door 
opened, and was cautiously closed : — a man advanced to the 
centre of the room. Observing it occupied by a stranger, he 
started back. — It was Robespierre ! By the light of the lamp 
on the mantle-piece, Denon could observe the darkening coun- 
tenance of this king of terrors, who appeared to fumble with his 
right hand in his breast, as if to claim the safeguard of concealed 
arms. Denon at once saw the danger of exciting even a momen- 
tary apprehension in a mind like his, and he dared not pause 
to parley, but retreated instantly backward towards the anti- 
room, his eyes fixed on Robespierre, the eyes of Robespierre 
fixei\ on him. A bell on the table of the apartment he had 
quitted rang with violence. In a few minutes, the huissier who 
answered it returned, with a polite apology from the dictator to 
the designer of the fastes republicains, Denon was again in- 
troduced, and it was remarkable, that this furious demagogue, 
with an evident attempt to disguise the feeling he had expe- 
rienced, from the unexpected presence of a stranger, assumed, in 
his manners and deportment, an air of high polish and ceremo- 
nious breeding, as if he wished to impress upon one, who had 
himself been reared in courts, an idea of his own gentility, and 
of his superiority over the « woollen vassals" he was associated 
with. « He was dressed," says Denon, " like a petit-maitre, 






» PARIS. 

and his embroidered muslin waistcoat was lined with rose-co- 
loured silk," 

Among a few pieces of sculpture, M. Denon possesses a very 
fine bust of Buonaparte, by Chaude, to whom Buonaparte sat; 
— a most rare circumstance ! It was, indeed, next to impossible 
to induce him to sit either for painters or sculptors : « When I 
was painting this picture at the Thuilleries," (said M. Girodet 
to me, as I stood admiring his beautiful full-length picture of the 
Emperor, in his coronation robes,) «* I do not think I ever saw 
him twice in the same position, or at rest for two minutes toge- 
ther. He was always in motion, restless, and occupied; and I 
fixed a trait, or caught a feature, when and how I could." 
While Chaude was taking his proportions for his bust, Denon 
was engaging his attention with one of those well-told stories, 
which charm all who hear them ; and in which Buonaparte 
(himself a pleasant raconteur [relater]) took infinite delight. 
When Chaude had finished, and Buonaparte saw the result of 
his work, he exclaimed, smiling, " Comment m 9 a-t-on ament 
a cela T y [How have I been brought to this ?] 

« When Buffon talks to me of the greatest works of Nature," 
said Madame de B* * *, " I always thought he was himself 
the greatest;" and when Denon talked to me of his collection, I 
always thought that one hour of his conversation was wortli all 
he had amassed, though three thousand years had contributed t» 
his treasures ! 



FRANCE. 

BOOK VI. 

Paris. 

« The people are the city!" shakspeare. 



The street-population of Paris. — Industry. — Beggars.-— Civilisation 
of the lower orders. — Language. — Morals. — The Bourgeoisie. — 
The Sunday of a Parisian shopkeeper. — The higher class of citi- 
zens. 

THE street-population of a great city, the groups and crowds 
that hurry to and fro, in perpetual motion, through its avenues, 
are the first objects of observation to a stranger, who has not 
yet got « derriere Its coulisses" [behind the scenes] of private so- 
ciety. To those who arrive, for the first time, at Paris, the 
moving picture, the moral camera-obscura, which animates itfc 
streets, appears marked by a vivacity, an energy, and a cheeri- 
ness, which give the most favourable opinion of the tempera- 
ment and situation of the lower and middle classes. It is, in- 
deed, by these classes the streets are chiefly filled ; no half- 
bred, and over-dressed, gentility ; no professional loungers, nor 
listless loiterers, parade their new fashions, and old airs, in the 
" public places of the city," and the quarter most infested by 
fashionable lounging,* is chiefly filled by English, and other 
foreign visitants. 

The streets of Paris have consequently an air, less respecta- 
ble than the streets of London. The dresses are less showy ; 
and even the smart grisettes [wives and daughters of tradesmen], 
who constitute their chief ornament, are infinitely inferior, in 

* The Chauss£e D'Antin. 
PART II. M 



50 *ARIS. 

personal attractions, and elegance of appearance, to the same 
rank of females, whom business, or vanity oblige to exhibit their 
charms and their finery, in Piccadilly and Pall Mall. All, how- 
ever, in the streets of Paris, is life, activity, intelligence, and 
occupation. — Idleness would in vain search there for a niche to 
slumber in. — 'Industry has seized upon every corner, occupies 
every angle, fills every little space, and multiplies her efforts in 
a thousand various forms, to which an exhaustless ingenuity 
opens countless resources. 

It was an observation of the great minister Colbert, that u les 
Franqais changeraient les rockers en or, si on les laisseroit faire" 
[the French would change the rocks info gold, if we would let 
them].— -This observation is most strictly illustrated by the in- 
habitants of Paris, w here the little trades, professions, and oc- 
cupations carried on along the cause-ways of the bridges and 
quays, at the corners of the streets, or on its pavements, under 
the archways and passages, through every quarter of the city, 
present a sort of bee-hive industry, which indicates a people in- 
stinctively laborious, and naturally averse from the vices, of 
which idleness is the mother and the nurse. Whoever may be 
inclined to pray, witli the pilgrims of Mecca, that they may 
meet no " melancholy faces in their way" must feel gratified in 
their cheerful wishes, in passing through the streets of Paris. — 
There, even mendicity smiles her supplications, and drops her 
whine, to melodise her wants in a song. 

But, in Paris, there is little professional, or ostensible mendi- 
city. — Nobody there dares to beg openly ; and under the sanc- 
tion of the name of God, or on the credit of the Virgin Mary, 
to render heaven insolvent, by the accumulation of debts un- 
worthily incurred. Poverty there makes its claim to com- 
passion, through the medium of interest; charity is given, and 
purchases are made, at the same moment: and blessings and 
tooth-picks — thanks and matches, are a more than adequate re- 
turn for the additional sous which pity gives, while thrift drives 
its bargain. No artfully exposed deformity, no squalid image 
of disgust and filth turns the shocked senses from the misery 
the heart would relieve. Decency is not shocked by rents, 
made by imposture, in the garb of wretchedness ; nor does in- 
fection breathe its pestilence, while humanity pauses to listen to 
the pleadings of wo. — Even the most indigent are cleanly, and 
well-clothed ; and the comical little urchin, who runs alter the 
careless passenger to solicit, not charily, but Attention to the 
scrapings of his blind father's fiddle, or to the grinding of the 
little organ of a crippled mother, seldom pursues you hare-foot- 
ed, and is more apt to excite smiles, by his arch sallies, than to 
awaken pity by his tale of sadness. 



PARIS. 51 

Oh ! I shall not easily forget the impression made on my heart, 
when, for a time unused to the mendicity which infests and in- 
fects the capital of my own country, I returned, with a keener 
sensibility of the mjsery exhibited in its streets, by the force of 
the comparison I had been recently able to make ! When, the 
first day that I crossed the threshold of home, distress and beg- 
gary met me in every direction — when, at e\e.vy step, the heart 
bled, the senses sickened, the mind revolted — where groups, 
marked with the strongest impress of misery and vice, squalid 
poverty and unconquerable idleness, scarcely covered by rags, 
which multiplied disease, scarcely distinguished by the traits of 
the human form, crossed the path-way* or crouded round the 
carriage ; and mingling the cant of bigotry and superstition, with 
ribaldry and imprecation, at once degradingly supplit ant, and 
brutally abusive, obtained, from shame and fear, what charity 
ought not, and pity could not give ! Weil may it be said — «* that 
the country must be indeed ill governed, where mendicity becomes 
a trade" 

All the laws in France, directed against mendicity, were rigo- 
rously put in force under the imperial government, and the effect 
of that wholesome discipline still remained. But the best, and 
surest law, that militates against its existence, is the universal 
sobriety, the natural industry, of the people, and the decrease of 
the fatal influence of a religion, which inculcates the virtue of 
beggary, as an article of faith, and the maintenance of idleness, 
as a pious duty. No mendicant friar — no begging monk, "pale, 
mild, and interesting," now sets the example of idleness and social 
degradation to the populace of the streets of Paris, nor way-lays 
the sentimental traveller, with a dramatic air, and representing 
sanctity. And though it has been asserted by a modern traveller, 
who spent a few days in the capital of France, visiting the Pa- 
lais Royal, and walking in the gardens of the Thuilleries, that 
from the view of society there presented to him, it appeared, 
« that France was wholly unchanged by the event of the Revo- 
lution ;" yet even to his impartial observation, it must have ap- 
peared, that there is less misery, less want, less beggary, in the 
streets of Paris, than is described by any traveller of former 
times, to have existed in that capital, before the revolution. In 
fact, he must have observed, that there is none whatever. 

Notwithstanding the close contact, into which all the little con- 
tending passions of self-interest are brought, by the proximity 
and number of the host of petits-marchands [petty merchants], 
and little manufacturers, who ply their trades and mysteries in 
the street, it yet scarcely ever happens, that a single broil, quarrel, 
or dispute among the rival candidates for popular attention, dis- 
turbs the quietude, and cheerfulness of the streets, where good 



52 PARIS. 

manners seem to be a sort of conventional policy* no less ade- 
quate in its influence to preserve order, than that of the civil 
power. 

The porteur-d'eau [water-carrier], who accidentally spatters 
the "tondeur de chiens" [the shearer of dogs], as he passes the 
pavement, where some little Sijlphide is getting its curly back 
fantastically cropped, instantly lays his buckets down to ask, 
" Mille et mitte pardons a Monsieur Jean, le tondeur" [A thou- 
sand and a thousand pardons of Mr. John, th«- shearer]. While 
Mon. Jean, It tondeur, gathers up his shearing implements, which 
obstructed the way of the polite water-carrier, with " Eh! mon 
Dieu, Monsieur ! c'est d moi a vousfaire mes excuses" [Eh ! my 
God, Monsieur ! it is I who ought to make my excuses to you]. 
All the *< small courtesies" are in constant and universal circu- 
lation in the streets of Paris. Good manners are, in France, 
what the art of boxing is in England ; with this difference, that 
the first is inculcated to avoid giving offence, as the latter is 
taught to avenge it. There are, indeed, no boxing matches in 
Paris, either scientific or accidental ; « breaking ribs" is not 
deemed "sport" for any rank or sex ; and whatever may be said 
in favour of a science which is defended as manly, or eulogised 
as supporting the spirit of the freest country in Europe, yet it 
was once found to be possible to conquer nations and overthrow 
dynasties, without the assistance of pugilism, the theories of 
Mendoza, or the malleability of Dutch Sam. 

The philosophy of language has always been applicable to the 
history of man, and popular idioms and phrases are no bad cri- 
terion of the state of the government, morals, and religion of 
any nation. The usual phraseology of the lower classes of the 
Irish is as different from that of the English, as is their accent. 
The sternness of conscious independence, with the ungracious 
bluntness of saturnine temperaments, are distinguishable in the 
discourse of the one ; the jargon of superstition, the shrewdness 
and servility which belong to social degradation, mark the lan- 
guage of the other. 

The lower classes of the French have not, in their style of 
conversation and manner of phrase, the slightest resemblance to 
either. And for the apparent refinement of their language, the 
peculiar turn of their idioms, and almost elegance of expressions, 
they are, perhaps, only comparable to the Athenian people, 
among whom an apple-woman from her stall weighed the phrases 
of Demosthenes, on his rostrum. 

The critical acumen of « les tricoteuses dc Robespierre" [knit- 
ters of Robespierre], as the poissardes [fish- women] were termed, 
who brought their knitting to the halls of the jacobin declaimcrs, 
has long been celebrated. When some popular orator was on 



PARIS. 53 

his feet, they dropped their work, and listened with profound 
attention. If he turned a period with peculiar felicity, or point- 
ed a phrase with rhetorical effect, they applauded, and cried 
out, " Id, c y est Men Id" [there, that is very well] ; but, if he was 
eloquent about nothing, and strewed flowers, where he should 
produce arguments, they resumed their knitting, shrugged their 
shoulders, and exclaimed contemptuously, « Bah, ildivague; au 
fait, citoyen; au fait" [Bah, whither is he rambling; to the 
point, citizen; to the point]. 

I was one day buying, at the beautiful and amusing marche 
auxjkurs [flower market], some early roses, the first of the sea- 
son: — a French lady, who was with me, observed to the bou- 
quetiere [nosegay -seller] who was tying them up, (and who sold 
mackarel on the days she did not sell flowers,) that she asked 
too much for them. 

« Comment done, trop? ma chere dame!" (replied the bouque- 
tiere) •« si I 9 on vent desfieurs precoses, il font Men payer selon J" 

[But why, my dear lady ; (replied the nosegay- woman) if you 
want precocious flowers, you must pay accordingly.] 

« Precocious flowers" would sound rather extraordinary, from 
the lips of a Covent-garden market-woman. 

On my arrival at our hotel at Paris, I asked the porter's 
wife, whether she could make some particular arrangement in 
our apartments, at such an hour? She replied, *« Je serai toujours 
aux ordres de madame ; d minuit, comme d midi" [1 shall always 
be at the command of madame; at midnight, as at noon], 

I demanded of the porter himself, whether our trunks were 
safe in the anti-room, he answered, <• Toute id est sacre, je 
prends tout sur ma tcte" [All that is here is sacred, I take all the 
risk on my own head]. 

We were one morning crossing the Pont-Neuf, when we un- 
expectedly met two Irish friends, whom we greeted with saluta- 
tions, more cordial than refined. Two women, who carry loads 
on their backs, in baskets peculiarly constructed, stopped to 
observe these "greetings in the market-place " by which they 
were amused beyond all power of restraining their risibility, 
while one of them exclaimed to the other, in a tone of good- hu- 
moured ridicule. «« Jlh, Seigneur Dieu! a-t-on jamais vu une 
pareille amitie ! Comment done ! c 9 est une passion I e'est une rage! 99 
[Ah, good Lord! did we ever see friendship like that! Posi- 
tively ! it is a passion ! it is a rage !] 

A very excelleut performer on the violin had attracted our at- 
tention one evening, on the Italian Boulevards, and we stopped 
to listen to him. He had, however, unfortunately placed him- 
self directly before a " petite-marchande, d vingt sous" [a little 
twenty-penny shop-keeper], whose toys and trinkets vainly 



54 *AR1S. 

glittered, while the fidler engrossed all the popular attention. 
He was in the midst of a very tender passage of Pleyel's, when 
the enraged petite-marchande seized a child's drum, which form- 
ed a part of her merchandise, and beat such a reveille, as com- 
pletely overwhelmed the sweeter tones of the pathetic musician. 
"Comment done!" [How now], exclaimed an angry street-ama- 
teur, turning fiercely on her. "Mais oui, mon ami;" — she cool- 
ly replied, «« chacun s 9 amuse, comme it Ventend" [Oh! yes my 
friend, let each amuse himself, according to his own taste]. 

We dropped in one evening accidentally at the Caffe des Muses, 
a spacious coffee- house theatre, where a play, a farce, and ballet 
are given in, with the glass of lemonade and dish of coffee, w hicli 
are purchased for something under ten-pence. We. asked the 
waiter, who was laying our little white marble table in a side- 
box, whether this theatre had not once been the church of the 
Theatins? He replied, with great quickness, "Oui, Madame; on 
ya toujours donne la comedief" [Yes, Madam; plays have al- 
ways been performed here]. 

Obliged, one morning, to take shelter under the door of a res- 
taurattnr in the Rue Rivoli, from a shower of rain, a figure pass- 
ed by us, in air, dress, and look, so precisely like the Tartuffe 
we had seen at the theatre the night before, that I could not help 
exclaiming to a gentleman who was with us, "encore un Tar- 
tuffe." 9 [another Tartuffe], 

One of the garqons, or waiters of the house, who overheard me, 
observed with a smile and nod of the head, <* Oui madame, e'est 
le veritable Tartuffe de Moliere; et Vaumdnier de la Duchesse a"An- 
gouleme" [Yes, madam, he is the exact Tartuffe of Moliere; 
and the almoner of the Duchess of Angouleme], 

With this aptitude to well-turned phrases, and elegance of lan- 
guage, the lower classes of Paris mingle occasionally a sort of 
scientific slip-slop, extremely amusing, caught from the adver- 
tisements, pasted at the corner of every street, of « Cours de Me- 
decine" — «de Chimie" — *< de Hydr antiques" [Courses of Medi- 
cine, — of Chemistry, — of Hydraulics], &c. tScc. and from the fa- 
cility with which all the public courses may be attended. 

A little second-rate couturicre, or work-woman, coming to take 
my orders, demanded, *« Comment, madame veut-elle que sa robe 
soil organisee" [How will madam have her gown organised]. 

While we were on a visit at General La Fayette's, a work- 
man was arranging a para-tonnerre [a lightning-rod], on the roof 
of the castle: M. La Fayette made some objection to the manner 
in which it was fixed: *» Monsieur le general," (said the ironmon- 
ger, with importance,) *< depuis qn 9 on a invente la science de chi- 
mie, en France, les botanistes out toujours ainsi arrange les para- 
tonnerrcs" [General, ever since the science of chemistry was in- 



PARIS. 55 

vented in France, the botanists have always arranged the light- 
ning-rods in this manner.] 

There is no circumstance in French manners more highly 
worth the consideration of the philosopher, the magistrate and 
the legislator, than the extreme rarity of executions, and the 
paucity of all sorts of offences militating against the penal code. 
Frauds of address, and petty thefts of all sorts are less frequent 
in Paris than in almost any of the best governed towns in cog- 
land. The streets of Paris at all hours of the night, and 1 do 
not only speak on the testimony of some veteran Parisians, but 
on individual experience, (for I have returned from English and 
French balls at very late hours) are perfectly safe and quiet; 
and though the extreme vigilanre of the municipal authorities 
afford a powerful check upon general licentiousness and noctur- 
nal disorders, the only good point of \iew in which indeed its 
tyrannical influence can be favourably considered ; — yet to this 
good order, the temperament of the national character, unload- 
ed by the necessities of a commercial existence, and unstimulat- 
ed by habitual inebriety from spirituous potations, must still 
more effectively contribute. 

In France, and its capital, the extremes of poverty and wealth 
are less distant, the habits of life are more regular and abstemi- 
ous than in England ; and the mildness, equality, and propor- 
tionate infliction of the penal code, requiring neither tempera- 
ment from royal clemency, nor forbearance from individual pro- 
secutors : its punishments fall with certainty upon the offender* 
and are formidable, because they are not severe. Atrocities 
against nature, parricide, infanticide, &c. are rarely committed 
in France ; and that brutal and rapacious violence exercised by 
those, to whom popular language in England has given the 
name of *« monsters " w ho stab, with wanton fury, the helpless 
female exposed to their horrible and unaccountable attacks, is 
so unknown in France, that when an anecdote of this nature was 
read before me, in a French society from an English paper, it 
not only excited emotions of horror and disgust, but was denied 
credibility by the greater number present, as being out of nature 
and possibility. 

The street-population of Paris seemed, indeed, always to me, 
to be characterised by great temperance, mildness, gaiety, and 
activity ; and to be peculiarly governed by a spirit of innocent, 
though luxurious enjoyment, evidently influenced by their cli- 
mate. They are perpetually buying or selling fruit and flow- 
ers; zcharbonnier, or coal porter, as he drives along his charette> 
fixes a bouquet of roses in his large white hat, which he has just 
purchased for a centime; a petite -mar chande places a pretty gar- 
land of corn-flowers on the head of her little girl, most ingeni- 



56 PARIS. 

ously wreathed, and sold by a neighbouring bouquetiere for a 
sons. Lemonade, and eau-de-groseille [g<>oseberry-water] are 
measured out at every corner of every street, from fantastic ves- 
sels, jingling with bells, to thirsty tradesmen or wearied messen- 
gers. Cakes are baking, soup is bubbling, sweatmeats are vend- 
ing in every quarter, in the open streets, over little stoves, and 
under temporary sheds. Learned monkies, popular orators, 
humorous story-tellers, excellent fiddle-players, and tolerable 
ballad-singers, present continual amusement and recreation to 
those, who cannot pay for more expensive and luxurious "feasts 
of reason." And the inimitable Polichinelli [Punchinello], and 
his dear and admirable friend Gilles, to both of whom 1 make 
this public acknowledgment for many a laughing five minutes, 
passed before their rostrum, are always ready with their "gibes 
and jokes" to catch the passing eye and ear, to cheer the care- 
worn, to amuse the idle, and to occupy the pauses of laborious 
indigence, with a true vis-comica, not. ahvavs to be purrhased 
by larger prices, at places of higher pretensions to genuine 
comedy. 

The street- population of Paris have scarcely time, to brood and 
be wicked; they are working, talking, laughing, listening, re- 
creating, and enjoying, 

" From night till morn, 

" From morn till dewy eve" 

They may perhaps be deemed frivolous — but they are not vicious 
— they doubtless commit many follies, but they unquestionably 
are guilty of few crimes. 

From the multitudinous population which swarm in the fine 
evenings of summer, on Sundays and holidays, through the nu- 
merous public walks and gardens of Paris, an impression is 
given to the mind of the English stranger of a dissipated and 
light-headed people, insensible to the sober interests of home, 
for whom domestic privacy has no enjoyment, and the. rluse- 
drawn circle of family tics no charm. But it is an error in- 
herent to the narrowness of the human mind, to make its own 
habits the standard of excellence, the supreme point of wisdom, 
to others; and thus overlooking the necessity and fitness which 
govern different customs in different countries, to forget that 
climate, soil, and remote institutions produce that variety in 
manners over the surface of the earth, which diversifies the ex- 
istence of its various inhabitants. 

The caprice of the English climate, the rapid alternation of 
sunshine and clouds, cold and heat, drought and humidity, ex- 
cludes all dependance of enjoyment from weather, and inevita- 



PARIS. gy 

bly makes the fire-side the most central point of attraction to all 
domestic society. This habit, arising out of necessity, is al- 
ways quoted as a virtue by national partiality, when opposed to 
the less domestic habits of other nations. It may, however, be 
questioned, whether a close room, excluding air and exercise, be 
more favourable to the social virtues, than open gardens and 
shaded groves; and whether the sulphureous atmosphere of a sea- 
coal fire contributes more to the exhaustion of the kinder feel- 
ings and happier humours, so necessary to cheer and enliven an 
every-day intercourse, than the fresh breathing air of heaven. 
Most of the domestic life of England, is passed at the fire-side; 
most of the domestic life of France, is enjoyed in the open air: 
the groups which form the circles of both are of the same affi- 
nity, and linked by the same ties. It is too true, that the peace 
of the English fire-side is often disturbed by little bickerings and 
mutual thwartings, the result of abundant bile and saturnine hu- 
mours, and of the close and constant contact of persons, who 
have nationally a tendency to tedium and ennui, and who, with 
the greatest qualities and highest powers, have certainly not the 
art of being very amusing, either to themselves or others. It is 
also most certain, that the grove and garden-groupings of 
France, exhibit, in their intimate intercourse, a genial glow of 
kindness, which perhaps less deep-seated in the heart than Eng- 
lish affection, spreads a more brilliant sunshine over the pass- 
ing hours of domestic life ; softening down all the salient points 
of selfish humours, and sweetening that ** bitter draught" which 
all who breathe must quaff. 

In contemplating, therefore, the English at their fire-side, and 
the French in their gardens, it may still be said that each adhere 
to the natural habits suited to their climate and constitutions, 
while it must be allowed, that if the English are the wisest and 
greatest nation, the French are incontestibly the happiest, and 
the most amiuble. 

God forbid, that I should utter one condemning word against 
the «« holy fane of the domestic hearth" which / at least have 
ever found my altar of refuge, against the pursuit of an untoward 
fortune, which has to me long brightened the gloom of my native 
« isle of storms" and which now, while I trace the flitting group- 
ings of a foreign scene, shines cheerily on my labours at home, 
rich in that good *< the world can neither give nor take away," 
and which, like the welcome beacon-light of the weary traveller, 
concentrates within its little circle of radiancy my only hope of 
rest, and view of happiness. 

But in enjoying the domestic habits of my own country, I am 
cautious to make them the infallible standards of merit, by which 
to judge a nation differently constituted. This is the task of 

PART II. I 



58 PARIS- 

party writers, paid to foment national prejudice, and to " divide," 
that their employers may " rule." But they, who write unbi- 
assed and unpurchased by any sect or faction, will disdain illi- 
beral representations, which are often false alike to truth and to 
taste, which check the progress of philosophy and illumination, 
and deepen the sources of disunion and hatred between nations, 
never intended by God or nature to be eternally opposed in con- 
tention and hostility. 

Nearly the whole of the bourgeoisie, or mere citizens of Paris, 
may be found on a Sunday distributed among the gardens on the 
Boulevards, in those of the Luxembourg, Thuilleries, and 
Champs-Elysees, — and upon a more gracious sight the eyes of 
patriot royalty never dwelt. A clean, healthy, well-dressed 
multitude, separated into family groups, partaking of the most 
innocent amusements, governed by the most perfect temperance, 
seeking the most h^althl'ii 3 rerreation, and ruled by the most 
perfect decency and decorum ; — such are the dramatis persoiue, 
winch exhibit on the gay scenes of the public places of amusement 
in Paris. The genuine badaud, or Frcnr h cockney, has no idea of 
pleasure, independent of his wife and children. There are, in 
Paris, no exclusive clubs for the middle classes, to which the sel- 
fish husband shrinks off, to doze and grumble over a pipe and 
tankard, not unconscious, but insensible, to the bickerings and 
scoldings that await him, on his return home, where all is jea- 
lousy and discontent at the un-shared enjoyment. 

The shop once shut in Paris, its master and mistress, with 
their children — frequently with their apprentices, (except the 
heroes of the Rue St. Denis, and la Cite prefer going alone, 
" pour f aire leurs farces" [to have their frolics)]; and invariably 
with la bonne, or principal female servant, desert for the day the 
close and noxious street, where they have breathed a virions 
air during the week, and seek a purer atmosphere in gayer 
scenes. 

These family groups, frequently consisting of three genera- 
tions, proceed to the Thuillerics-gardens « pour voir j oner les 
eau.x" [to see the water works play], and to amuse the children 
by showing them the gold and silver fish, which float and sparkle 
on the surface of the pond in shoals. For it is an indulgence to 
these little people to be allowed to share their gateaux de JSTan- 
terre [Nanterre cakes], bought from the *« Belle Magdeleine^ [fair 
Madelaine], at the garden-gate, with •< les pctites betes" [the lit- 
tle animals]. — The morning is spent in sauntering through these 
lovely gardens, and the adjoining Champs-Elysees, until the 
hour of dinner arrives, and the party then hasten to some of the 
restaurateurs, whose salons are scented by the orange-trees of the 
Thuilleries to which they arc contiguous. 



PARIS. 59 

As soon as the salon is entered, la bonne, always important 
and bustling, collects the bonnets and gloves, and hangs them on 
the pegs over the table ; pins the napkins before the children, 
and arranges the hair of the girls. Then, waiting till her mas- 
ters are seated, takes her own place at the same table, but at a 
modest distance, and enters into consultation with the rest of the 
party over the carte, or bill of fare, which the waiter presents. 
Every one chooses a dish ; la bonne as well as the rest, and the 
quality of the wine is carried by a plurality of votes. A desert 
and coffee conclude the dinner; the bonnets and shawls are re- 
sumed, and the party again sally forth to the Champs Elysees. 
There the children are treated to the "jeu de bague" [game of 
the ring]; the petit-bon-homme [the little man — the youngest 
boy] mounts the wooden horse, with an air of equestrian digni- 
ty, his sisters, seated in the chairs, endeavour, as the machine 
turns round, to catch the ring on the little wand ; while the own- 
er, who presides over the game, cuts his often-reiterated jokes, 
and the father and mother of the candidates for Olympic honours 
cry, at every successful effort, « C'est d Marie/ 99 " C'est a Cta- 
mille!" « C'est a Fanchette!" [It is Mary's — It is Camilla's — It is 
Fanny's]. La bonne is sure to succeed into the vacated seat of 
one of her young mistresses, and even the old lady herself can- 
not always resist the temptation of renewing the amusements of 
her girlhood. 

When all have had their turn at the «jeu de bague, 99 the un- 
wearied party proceed through the twilight groves, to one of 
those splendidly illuminated temples, which are scattered over 
the Champs-Elysees, and above whose Corinthian porticos the 
public are informed, that « Ici on danse tons les jours 99 [There 
is dancing here every day]. There is nothing at all in the same 
line in London, as these beautiful 'pavilions, where "on danse 
tons les jours 99 [they dance every day], at a very cheap rate. 
They are generally a rotunda; the ample dome is supported by 
gilt pillars, and the piers, covered with magnificent mirrors, 
reflect a thousand lights from lustres of crystal. A light gilt 
balustrade incloses the spot dedicated to quadrilles and French 
country dances ; while outside its boundaries, the languid waltz- 
ers pursue their circling maze; and the spectators, the friends, 
relatives, and parents of the gay performers, are ranged round 
on ottomans, which form the extreme circle of the ring. Arches 
between the pillars, at certain intervals, richly draped, open into 
the gardens, which are lighted up ; and refreshments are distri- 
buted in different parts of the saloon, which communicate with 
little offices on the outside. Here the old people repose, the chil- 
dren are amused, and the young men and women dance their 
graceful and always well-danced quadrilles, to the same beauti- 



60 PARIS. 

ful ballet music as is given at the opera, and always performed 
by a numerous and excellent band. The whole of this pleasant 
recreation is procured for the price paid for the lemonade, " eau 
de groseille*" [gooseberry-water], and sweet cakes, which serve 
as a collation or supper to the family, before they return home. 
This they do at an early hour; and a day, whoSe enjoyments 
nothing ran disturb but a shower of rain, is thus cheaply finished 
by the bon badaud [good cockney] of Paris, and his family 
group. 

In reading Madame Roland's curious and interesting Me~ 
moires, I was forcibly struck by the vivid and delightful picture, 
drawn of the innocent recreations which were taken by her 
little family, in the woods of Vincennes, and the groves of St. 
Cloud, on Sundays and holidays ; and I thought them descrip- 
tive of manners, too purely primitive, to belong, at the present 
day, to such a city as Paris. These pictures, however, I saw 
a hundred times repeated, not only in the public gardens of the 
metropolis, but in all the environs of the capital. Wherever na- 
ture and art provided an attraction, afforded accommodation to 
health and pleasure; gaiety, temperance, and decency seemed 
invariably to preside over these little festivals of domestic en- 
joyment. 

The bon bourgeois [good citizen] of Paris, however, though 
singularly industrious, and primitive in his habits, and moral 
in his conduct, enjoys but a small portion of respect from his 
compatriots ; and he holds precisely the same place in public 
estimation as the second rate cockney of London, whose sphere 
of existence never extends beyond the sound of Bow bell. The 
Parisian badaud has no public feeling, and no national spirit. — 
It is his distinction to be ne natif de Paris [born a native of Pa- 
ris]; — he knows no other character, connected with his country; 
and, provided, as a shopkeeper once said to me, in the marche 
anx Innocents [market of the Innocents], on the subject of the 
political changes which had taken place, « pourvu que la bou- 
tique aille son train, qu'est-ce que ca nous regarded" [provided 
that the shop goes on well, why need we care] seems to be the 
device of the whole fraternity. 

The higher classes of citizens, who own the great magazins, 
or ware-rooms, the marchands of Paris, are of a higher cast, in 
character, and habits of life, as well as in condition ; and, 
though they have not that consideration in society, which be- 
longs to the trading members of a great commercial country; 
though they have neither the wealth, the consideration, the po- 
litical talent, nor political consequence of our Harvey Combes, 



PARIS. Ql 

and Waithmans*, many of these respectable bourgeois enjoy a 
yevy agreeable and luxurious existem e. They Wave their mai- 
son bien montee [well- furnished house], in town, their petite mat- 
son de plaisance, and pied a terre [their little villa and spot of 
ground], in the environs, and drive their cabriolet, or demi-for- 
tune on a Sunday, among the more splendid, though not more 
commodious, vehicles of the higher classes in the Bois de Bou- 
logne. Still, however, it would be in vain to look, in the great 
avenues leading to Paris, for those proofs of the independence 
and prosperity of the citizens of a great capital, those snug, 
neat, happy-looking dwellings, which, on all the high roads lead- 
ing to London, present themselves on every side, at once the 
retreat and recompense of industry and probity; the cheerful 
and best monuments of the happy condition of a free people. 

O surely, if long supported despotism prints deeply its cha- 
racter on every order of the community which it oppresses, and 
leaves its trace, long after its pressure is removed, the benefits 
resulting from a good government, will equally betray them- 
selves, under a thousand lingering forms, even when the spirit, 
from which they have arisen, is subdued or quenched. And 
should circumstances, undreamed of in human philosophy, sub- 
vert the constitution of England, shade the brilliant lustre of her 
liberties, and 

" Fright the isle from her propriety," 

still the ruin spread over the land, laid waste by despotism and 
corruption, would long attest her former greatness and pros- 
perity ; and the effects of her free constitution would continue 
to preserve the semblance of prosperity and happiness, even 
when neither virtually exist ; as organic life survives the vital 
throb, which once gave it force and motion. 

* Nothing could exceed the surprise of a party of very well educated French 
persons, on being told that Whi thread was a brewer ; and when, to illustrate 
the extent of capital and traffic, engaged in England in that business, I in- 
stanced the destruction lately occasioned by the bursting of the great vat, at 
Meux's brewhouse, 1 am convinced that the tale far exceeded the limits of 
their powers of belief, or comprehension. 



FRANCE, 



BOOK VII. 

French Theatre. 



Qui me delivera des Grecs et des Romains ? 

Du sein de leurs tombeaux, ces peuples inhumains- 

Feront assurement le malheur de ma vie. — 

Quand je fus au theatre, 
Je n'entendois jamais que Phedre, Cleopatre, 
Ariadne, Didon, leurs amants, leurs epoux, 
Tous princes enrages, burlant corarae ies loups. 
Rodogune, Jocaste, et puis les Pelopides, 
Et tant d'autres heros, tioblement parricides ; 
Et toi, triste famille, a qui Dieu fasse paix, - 
Race d' Agamemnon, qui ne finis jamais ; 
Dont je voyois partout les querelles antiques, 
Et les assassinats, mis en vers heroiqaes. 

Buicuorx, Poesies fugitive*. 



The French Tragedy Racine.— Theatre Franqais. — Britannicus. 

— Talma, — St. Prix, — Style of acting. — Of enunciation, — Ma- 
demoiselle Duchenois, — Mademoiselle George. — Costume, — A first 
representation, — Charlemagne. — M. Le Mercier — La Fronde, — 

VAvocat Patelin,< — '-French Comedy, Motif re. Tartnjfe. — 

Mademoiselle Mars,— Mademoiselle Le Vert,-Fleury.—Michaud. 
— The Audience. — The Odeon.< — <The Chevalier Canolle.~—The 
Academie Roy ale de Musique, — French Music. — Oedipe,< — Devin 
du Village. — Influence of Buonaparte on the State of Music in 
France. — Paessiello.—Cherubini.—Cimerosa. — Paer.—Blangini. 
— Boieldieu. — Berton, — Lambert, — Mvhul, — Le Sueur, — The 
Court Theatre at the Thuilleries, — Theatre des Vaudevilles, — 
Theatre des Varietes. — Brunet, — Potier, — Theatres des Boulc- 
varts, — M Sampson." — «« Joseph." — " Sacrifice d' Abraham." — 

. « Pieces de Cir Constances," 

IT is difficult to reconcile an inordinate passion for drama- 
tic representation, with extrusive resources of social and con- 
versational enjoyment. The talent of the Flench for private 
society, and their taste for theatrical exhibition, are among the 



FRENCH THEATRE. 63 

solecisms of a nation, whose striking paradoxes and incongrui- 
ties are only to be solved by the influence of institutions, which 
never jet have, for any period of time, squared with the general 
illumination of the people. 

in England, the drama is the legitimate offspring of the na- 
tional genius. s * Gammer Gurton's Needle" and ** Eastwood 
Hoe" have certainly no prototype in the Greek theatre. The 
eariy English dramatists were purely original ; nature was the 
Aristotle of Shakspeare ; and if his genius occasionally partook 
of her irregularities, still. 

" The light which led astray, was light from Heaven." 

It is curious to observe, that the first dramatic compositions 
in France, which succeeded to the « Mysteries ," imported by the 
pilgrims from the East, were imitations of the Greek tragedy, 
given by Jodelle, in 1552. 

The most dramatic nation of modern times had no national 
drama to oppose to these classical imitations ; and the track thus 
early beaten down, has been followed by their writers, with a 
tameness and servility, from which not even the innovating bold- 
ness of philosophy has dared to deviate. Champfort wrote against 
the <* imitation of nature" in French tragedy ; Voltaire derides 
it in Shakspeare*; and, "Hors Dieu, rien n'est beau dans la nature, 

* The French, who lake all their notions of Shakspeare from Voltaire, ima- 
gine that he understood English, and could appreciate his author. But it may 
be fairly inferred, that they are wrong in both particulars. The difficulty, 
winch the French always experience in learning English, even under the most 
favourable circumstances, is evinced in the results of the late emigration of 
the first class of that nation- Voltaire spent but a few months in England, and 
was surrounded by i cluster of persons, who all spoke French ; and Sbaks- 
peare's language, (who, the French seem not to know, wrote his best plays 
during their Henry IV-), replete with obsolete words, disused idioms, and 
continued references to local habiis and cotemporary fashions, affords diffi- 
culties not always surmountable even by i>ood English scholars. Voltaire's 
translations of Shakspeare, made by the help of his dict-onary, are as ill exe- 
cuted, as the passages he attempts, are injudiciously selected for the illustra- 
tion of his author. His attempts at a version are, indeed, little more than 
burlesque parodies. His correspondence with D'Alembert, on his own cele- 
brated discourse on Shakspeare, given at the Academy in 1776, is extremely 
curious, " au lieu des grossie'rete's, inlisibles publiquement, que vous cites tie 
Shakspeare, y substituez quelr/ues autrea passages ridicules et lisibles, qui ne 7>ous 
tnanqueront pas" [Instead of the coarse phrases and scenes (impossible to read 
publicly) that you cite from Shakspeare, substitute some ridiculous passages 
and well-managed jests, for which you are never at a loss]. The idea of sub' 
utitnting some loell-turned French jokes and ridicuhnts passages, for the bold, 
strong English humour of Shakspeare, started by D'Alembert, was adopted by 
Voltaire; — the result may be easily imagined. D'Alembert exclaimed with 
triumph, U "H faut /aire voir d ces tristes et insolens .Anglais, que nos gens de 
leltres savent mieux se battre contre eux, qtie nos souluts et nos gdne'raux" [We 
must shew these insolent melancholy English, that our men of letters can 
combat them with more surcess than our soldiers and sailors]. The gens dt 
litres of Paris opposed to Shakspeare ! ! 



Q£ FRENCH THEATRE. 

que ce qui rteociste pas" [Except God, there is nothing fine in 
nature, but thai which docs not exist], seems, with some occa- 
sional exceptions in the case of Corneille, to have been a maxim 
admitted, and a rule pursued, by all the tragic poets of France. 

The modern French critics boast, that their tragedy is the 
true « beau ideal" of dramatir poetry. But the « beau ideal" 
though a more splendid combination of Nat lire's finer proportions, 
most still be true to its original, or it becomes pedantry, man- 
nerism, and affectation. Whatever has not its prototype in rea- 
lity, is necessarily conventional ; it is created for an age, a sect, 
or a party, but has no kindred with immortality. 

The powerful genius of Corneille was stamped with the hardi- 
hood of the times in which he flourished, when the conflicts of the 
Fronde, assuming the character of licentious liberty, had let 
loose all the passions of society, and energised all its forms. 
Corneille, even with that bad taste which disfigures his produc- 
tions, and which was partly referable to the age and state of 
letters in France, might have given a bold and passionate direc- 
tion to the French drama, have thrown mannerism aside for 
Nature, and have presented, in the chivalric story of his own 
<* Cid" a model to his successors for a national school of tragedy, 
deviating from the worn-out ancient fable, and superior to it in 
interest and reference. But the importunate vanity of Louis 
XIV. found, in the feebleness of Racine's character, and in the 
elegance of his genius, a fit engine to confirm that esprit de sys- 
Mme* [spirit of system] which enters into every relation under his 
government, to dazzle and enslave the dramatic taste of the day ; 
to conform to the cold severity of the Greek rules ; and, avoiding 
all references to national history, to liberty, or government, to 
weave with the religious and historical fables of antiquity, the 
characters and manners of the French court; to eulogise the 
feats of ifs gorgeous king ; and to realise the maxims of the 
modern Aristarchus : 

" Que Racine enfantant des miracles nouveaux, 
** De ses heros, sur hit, forme tous ses tableaux." 
[That Racine, producing ntw miracles, painted all his heroes upon his model.) 

Thus writing to the vanity, and under the inspiration of the 
sovereign, by whose frowns he died, and abiding strictly by the 
advice o£ Boileau, Racine produced his elegant paraphrases of 
the Greek dramas ; adhering strictly to their rides and unities, but 
violating the propriety of action in every scene, by blending the 
Formal frivolity of the French manners, with the grand solemnity 
of antique fable. Amidst the palaces of Greece and Rome, the 
Theseus's and Csesars are all Louis XIV. and the heroines of 
antiquity, the Hebrew Esther, and Persian Vashli. merely por- 
traits of the reigning or discarded favourites of Versailles. That 



FRENCH THEATRE. 05 

arrogance must, indeed, be supreme, which would coolly presume 
to decide on the merits of an author, in a foreign language, 
without reference to the judgment of those for whom, and to 
whom he wrote ; or which would lead to the belief, that an ac- 
quired knowledge of any tongue can give an ;tdequate conception 
of beauty of style, and poetical composition ; which are not 
always fully appreciated by those, to whom that tongue is ver- 
nacular. 

During my residence in France, and my intimacy with some 
of its first literary characters, I endeavoured to correct my ori- 
ginal opinion of Racine, long since formed, by that of his na- 
tion ; and I deman led, from the judgment of others, what my 
own had not been able to discover or appreciate. — -My memory, 
furnished with a hundred splendid poetical images of Shakspeare 
and Dryden, I demanded of the passionate admirers of Racine, 
for those effusions of bold and high-wrought imagination, the 
brilliant metaphor, the fanciful simile, the sublime allusion, 
which are the generic features of genius, in which Shakspeare 
is so abundant, and Dryden occasionally so rich. But the 
pages of Racine scarcely furnish one example — there are there 
no << cloud-capt towers," no «« feathered Mercury, new lighted 
on a heaven-kissing hill," no « dew-drop shook from a lion's 
mane," not even the 

" Come purpureo fior languendo more 

" Che il vomere al passar tagliato lassa,"* &c. &c. 

of Ariosto, or the « Virginella come la Rosa" of the tender and 
delicate Metastasio. 

I asked for some of those philosophical reflections, which teem 
in every page of Shakspeare, arid speak a knowledge almost in- 
tuitive of human character; those delicate, scarcely perceptible 
shades, in human qualities, passions and interests, which escape 
the vulgar eye of common observation, and are caught and fixed 
by the omnipotent glance of genius. But Racine, though an histo- 
rian, was not a philosopher, in any sense of the word : and it 
would be vain to search, in his correct pages, for one of the 
thousand citations referable to every point of human conduct 
and human feeling, which Shakspeare presents as the ready 
illustrations of every text in the moral existence of man. For 
original conception of character ; for Hamlets, Lears, Macbeths, 
and Falstiaffs, J did not ask — >and still less for that higher depart- 

* See the death of Dardinel, in the " Orlando. 3 * Canto xviii. stanza 143 , 
PART II. K 



(56 FRENCH THEATRE. 

incut of poetical^enius, invention of fable ; because Racine him- 
self stifles the expectation, when he labours, through many an 
endless preface, to prove how little he has deviated from the 
well-known story of antiquity, which he has adopted, or from 
the characters drawn by cotemporary historians, which he has 
copied. 

Still, however, the tragedies of Racine, without one poetical 
image, without one philosophical observation, — without any 
originality of character, or invention of fable, must have some 
singular dramatic excellence, since one of the most enlightened, 
and, decidedly, the most literary nation in Europe, prefers him 
to every other, and speaks of him with an admiration beyond 
bounds, and without reservation. Where, however, this myste- 
rious charm, this M all in all, and all in every part," lies con- 
cealed from the apprehension of foreign readers, it is not re- 
served for me to discover. I only judge of Racine as he affects 
me, the usual standard of a woman's judgment, and with a taste, 
perhaps, too highly excited, by the early and continual perusal 
of Shakspeare, to me the book devoutly read and conned and 
prized, as that " traced by an angel's hand for Mussulman de- 
votion, his guide and creed." I may be wholly unqualified to 
appreciate the merits of mere faultless diction ; and elegant nar- 
ration, antithesis studiously opposed, points delicately made, 
inferences artfully hinted, and turns, breaks and inuendos inge- 
niously contrived, which charm the taste and precision of 
French criticism, in the smooth and elegant versification of Ra- 
cine, are flat, cold, and insufficient to warm the imagination, in- 
terest the judgment, or rouse the feelings, which have received 
their tone of exaltation from the passionate, energetic, and 
splendid dramas of the English bard — irregular and wild, in- 
deed, as the works of nature ; but, like them, stampt with the 
divine impress of original creation, fresh, sublime, and vigorous, 
beyond the reach of art, and unsusceptible to imitation. 

In whatever circle in Paris, I ventured to introduce the sub- 
ject of Racine, he was not judged, but eubgised. There was no 
critic ism ; all was panegyric. It is so delightful when the first 
flush of youthful sensation is over, to acquire a capability for a 
new pleasure and a new taste, that it was my anxious desire to 
receive delight from the perusal of Racine, and I reqnested one 
of his devoted admirers to point me out some instance of his pe- 
culiar beauty. He read to me the speech of Orestes An Andro- 
mache, where, in a tone of mingled rage and peevishness, at 
the cruelty of Hermionc, and the counsels of his friends, he 
exclaims, 



FRENCH THEATRE. (5^ 

v ' Assez,et trop long terns, mon amitie t'accable, 
Evite un malheureux, abandonne un coupable; 
Cher Pylade, crois-moi, tapuie t'a seduit, 
Laisse moi des perils, dont j'attends tout le fruit. 
Porte aux Grecs cet enfant, que Pyrrhus m'abandonne." 
Pylade. — " Allons, Seigneur, enlevons Hermione!" 

[Too long, already, has my friendship troubled you; avoid me for I am 
wretched, abandon me for I am g'lilty. Dear Pyiades, believe me, compassion 
blinds you .—Leave me to dangers which I expect and merit. Convey to the 
"Greeks this child, which Pyrrhus left with me- 

Pyiades. — Come, my lord, let us carry off Hermione]. 

This reply of Pyiades, delicately indicating that he perceives 
the drift of all Orestes' arguments, is deemed one of the finest 
passages of Racine : it gives also the standard, by which his ge- 
nius is measured and his talent appreciated. But true loftiness 
of conception, and a bold range of the imagination, are utterly 
incompatible with the double despotism of Aristotle, and of the 
political system under which the French authors wrote. Kings, 
ministers, and generals, are alone considered worthy to fill the 
buskin ; but the intrigues of the palace are the sole subjects, the mo- 
tives, and the means admissible in the conduct of the fable. Even 
rebellion loses its importance, and opposition its virtue, by exclud- 
ing all notions of freedom and public good ; and by turning for ever 
upon the frown of a female, or on the rivalry with a royal lover. 
The fatal necessity of depicting one paramount passion begets 
also a poverty in the subject, which can only be relieved by dia- 
lectic subtlety, and exaggerated diction. Man is never thus in- 
fluenced ; never thus unique in character, and constant in his af- 
fections. It is an individual of the human species, not an indi- 
vidual passion, that forms the genuine object of scenic represen- 
tation; and the frigid personifications of the ancient mtjsteries are 
scarcely less tedious, than the abstract and ideal heroes which 
this false canon of criticism has produced. The buskined princes 
of the French stage, indeed, resemble humanity in the same de- 
gree, that an anatomical dissection, or the statue of Condillac, 
render the life of motion, or the intricacies of volition. 

The*first tragedy of Racine, which I saw performed in 
France, was his Britannicus; the piece in which, he himself ob- 
serves, he took the most pains; « celle de mes tragedies, que je 
puis dire que j'ai le plus travaillee" [that of my tragedies on 
which I may say I worked the most]. He, however, confesses 
that he formed this play so closely on the history of Tacitus, 
that there is scarcely one «« trait eclatant" [one brilliant stroke] 
through the whole, which he had not borrowed from his favour- 
ite historian. Britannicus, thus recommended by its author, 
and sustained by the whole strength of the company of the Thea- 
tre Francais; Britannicus, so long the fashion, from the inimita- 



Qg FRENCH THEATRE. 

blc performance of Talma, in Nero, awakened my most anxious 
expectations; and it was not without emotion, that I saw myself, 
for the first time, in the great national theatre of France, and in 
a box chosen and procured for me by M. Talma himself. Still, 
however great my expectation, however lively my impatience for 
the rising of the curtain, which recalled the long blunted vivacity 
of feelings of childish solicitude and curiosity, I soon perceived 
I was cold, languid, and inanimate to the genuine French au- 
dience that surrounded me. The house was an overflow at an 
early hour; the orchestra, cleared of all its instruments, was 
filled to suffocation ; and the parterre [pit], as usual, crowded 
with men, (chiefly from the public schools and lyeees, whose 
criticisms not unfrequently decide the fate of ne i pieces, and 
give weight to the reputation of old ones,) exhibited hundreds 
of anxious faces marked countenances, and figures and cos- 
tumes w Inch might answer alike for the bands of brigandage, 
or the classes of philosophy. Some were reading over the tra- 
gedy ; others were commenting particular passages : — a low 
murmur of agitation crept through the house, like the rustling 
of leaves to a gentle wind, until the rising of the curtain stilled 
every voice, composed every muscle, and riveted the very exist- 
ence of the audience, (if I may use the expression) upon the 
scene. 

The theatres of other countries assemble spectators, but an 
audience is only to be found in a French theatre. — Through the 
whole five acts attention never flagged for a moment; not an eye 
was averted— not an ear unattending : every one seemed to have 
the play by heart, and every one attended, as if they had never 
seen it before. For myself, it was with the greatest difhVulty, 
and only, I believe, owing to the exquisite acting of Talma, and 
Mademoiselle George, that I could sit it out. Long and cold re- 
citals, and a succession of antithesis,* points, and epigrams, 
were relieved only by a declamation that froze, and by dia- 
logues, where each interlocutor was permitted to speak alter- 
nately for half an hour, in all the monotony of recitation, with 
which some teller 



■Of a twice-told tale 



" Vexes the dull ear of a drowsy hearer." 

The first act of Britannicus is a series of antithesistical points, 
which, uttered with great neatness and precision, by the turbu- 

* These jolies tournures [pretty turns] run through all the tragedies of Racine, 
'* Mon unique esperancc eat dans mon desespoir" [My only hope is in my despair], 
is one out of a hundred in JJajazet. 



FRENCH THEATRE. 69 

lent and haughty Jlgrippina, gave her the air and character of 
one of the literary precieuses of the hotel Rambouillet. 

" Tout, s'il est genereux, lui present cette loi, 
Ma,s tout, s'il est ingrat, lui parle contre moi" 

" Mais crains que l'avenir, detruisant le passe, 
II ne finisse ainsi, qu' Auguste a commence." 

" Mis sa feinte bonte" se tournanten fureur, 
Les delices de Rome en devinrent l'horreur — " 

" Q 'il choississe, s'il vrut, d'Auguste ou de Tibere, 
Q 'U lmite, s'il le peut, Germanicus mon pere-" 

iS Soutenir vos rigueurs, par d'autres cruautes, 
Et laver dans le sang, vos bras ensanglantes.'* 

" Vous allumez un feu, qui ne pourra s'eteindre, 
Craint de tout l'univers, il faudra tout craindre." 

[Every thing, if he is generous, prescribes to him this law, bat everything, 
if he is ungrateful, speaks to him against me. 

B-.t fear that the future, in destroying the past, wiLl not finish thus, as Au- 
gustus his begun 

But his feigned goodness turning into fury, the delights of Rome became 
horrors. 

Let him choose, if he will, between Augustus and Tiberius, let him imitate, 
if he can, my father Germanicus. 

Support your severities by other cruelties, and wash in blood your bloody 
hands. 

You light a fire which cannot be extinguished— Fear for all the universe, 
fear every thing]. 

While Madame Agrippina indulges in these concetti, Jlonseig- 
neur Nero is sentimentally in love; Burrhus proses in mono- 
logues, of a hundred lines, on the good education which he and 
Seneca gave to their unworthy pupil,* and the tender Junie 9 with 
that politeness which never forgets itself on any occasion, asks 
pardon of Agrippina, for leaving her abruptly to seek her lover, 
who is expiring under the hands of his assasins. 

Burrhus- " Madame, e'en est fait ; Britannicus expire-" 
Junie. " Ah ! mon prince !*' 
Jlgrippinu- "II expire!" 
Burrhus- " Ou plutot il est mort, 

Madame-" 
Junie. "Pardonnez, Madame, a ce transport; 

* Je vais le secourir, (si je puis) ou le suivre." 

* A few nights after I had seen Britannicus, I was present at the perform 
ance of Artaxerxes. When Jirtabanes falls lifeless in the arms of the attend- 
ants, he gave a little kick with his foot, as the curtain was dropping, to show 
that be had not violated the rules, by dying on the stage- 




70 FRENCH THEATRE. 

[Burrhus — " Madam, 'tis done ; Britannicus expires. 

Junta. — Ah ! my prince ! 

Jigrippina — He expires ! 

Burrhus — Or rather madam he is dead. 

Junta — Pardon, madam, my grief; 

I will go and assist him (if I can) or follow him.] 

Such is the powerful influence of the esprit de systetne, and of 
the high authority of Racine's reputation in France, that these 
absurdities pass now without a censure, as they would have 
done when the art was in its infancy; while the smallest devia- 
tion from taste, even from grammar, in a modern tragedy, re- 
ceives no quarter, and a n&n or a oui 9 placed mal-d~propos 9 is 
sufficient to ruin a piece even of merit. As the French tragedy 
is made up of long details and cold declamations, and Racine is 
little more than Tacitus in French rhyme, the actor is usually a 
mere declaimer. The transitions of emotion are few and strong; 
- — it is all a dead calm, or a furious rage, declamatory recita- 
tion, or angry blustering. The French tragedy is a transcript 
of the religious mysteries and history of Greece and Rome, 
copied from their dramas — tied down to their cold facts, and re- 
gulated by their severe rules. The more delicate developement 
of feeling, the finer shades of passion, the tints, touches, and 
bursts and throes of nature, in all her more intimate, more bo- 
som-felt operations, are unknown to the French drama ; and 
their exhibition, so favourable to the higher order of genius in 
the histrionic art, are denied to the actor. 

There is no by- play on the French stage. »No Othello there 
becomes the victim of a passion, artfully awakened in an unsus- 
pecting heart. Its first indication could not there be made per- 
ceptible, dawning in faint shadows on the tremulous form, and 
quivering nether lip, struggling with contending evidences in the 
heaving breast — sickening, agitating the entire frame, glooming 
on the curved brow, distorting the altered feature, flashing from 
the rolling eye, and wound up by all the frightful indications of 
doubt, fear, hope, conviction, rage, and confirmed despair. This 
wonderous composition, which, in combining the highest pow- 
ers of dramatic genius, in the author, demands the fullest exer- 
cise of histrionic ability, in the actor, could have no parallel on 
the French theatre. A French Othello would hear an account 
of bis wife's perfidy, perhaps, in a neat and appropriate speech 
of a hundred and fifty lines ; and no countenance, however flexi- 
ble and mobile, could shift and change its expression, during a 
space of a quarter of an hour. The French Othello, therefore, 
would hear the tale of [ago (who would divide it logically, ac- 
cording to scholastic rule) fairly and politely out — he would 
then fall into a violent passion, and shake his head, and clench 



FRENCH THEATRE. 71 

his trembling hands, and recite his rage, and syllogise his fury, 
according to every classical authority and established rule. 

In the famous scene of Britannicus, where Agrippina is left 
tete-a-tete with her son, to enter on her defence, Mademoiselle 
George, as the Roman empress, went through a long speech of 
a hundred and ten lines, with great clearness, elegance of enun- 
ciation, and graceful calmness of action. But as this eternal 
speech was simply the history of the early life and reign of Nero, 
taken from Tacitus, the beautiful and expressive countenance of 
this fine actress was left at perfect rest; and Mrs. Siddons, in 
one of her readings of Milton, was quite as dramatic and ani- 
mated, as the restless and ambitious mother of the Roman mon- 
ster, summing up the benefits she had conferred on her son, and 
exposing his ingratitude. During the first seventy lines of this 
speech, Talma, as Nero, sat a patient and tranquil auditor. No 
abrupt interruption of haughty impatience, disdaining the curb 
of a long-neglected authority, was furnished by the genius of the 
author, or gave play to the talents of the admirable actor ; and 
the little by-play allowed him, or rather that he allowed him- 
self, was not risked, until towards the Hose of the speech : it 
was then, however, exquisite; it was Nature. The constraint 
of forced and half-given attention, the languor of exhaustion, 
the restlessness of tedium, and the struggle between some little 
remains of filial deference and habitual respect, blended with the 
haughty impatience of all dictation, were depicted, not in strong 
symptoms and broad touches of grimace and action, but with a. 
keeping! a tact, a fidelity to Nature, indescribably fine. His 
transition of attitude; his playing with the embroidered scarf, 
round his neck, and which made a part of his most classical cos- 
tume, his almost appearing to count its threads, in the inanity 
of his profound ennui, were all traits of the highest order of act- 
ing. In London, this acting would have produced a thunder of 
applause; in Paris it was coldly received, because it was in- 
novation; and many a black head in the parterre [pit] was 
searching its classical recesses, for some example from some tradi- 
tional authority, from Baron, orLe Kain, of an emperor being 
restless on his chair, or of the incident of playing with the hand- 
kerchief being at all conformable to the necessity " de represen- 
ter noblement" [a noble deportment], in all kings, since the time 
of Louis le Grand. 

Whether on the stage, at the Theatre Franqais, or in the 
Thuilleries, Talma is eminently superior to the school, whose 
rules he ia obliged to obey. His great genius always appeared 
to me to be struggling against the methodical obstacles presented 
to its exertions. He is the Gulliver of the French stage tied 
down by Lilliputian threads. Before talents like his can exert 



J% FRENCH THEATRE. 

their full force, and take their uttermost scope, a new order of 
drama must succeed to the declamatory and rhyming school, which 
now occupies the French stage. Tal a is a passionate admirer 
of the English drama, and of Shakspeare. He speaks English 
fluently, and told me that he had a great desire to play in one 
of Shakspeare's tragedies. He did not complain, hut he hinted 
at the restraint under which his talents laboured, from that 
esprit de systeme [spirit of system,] which the French have banish- 
ed from every other art; and which keeps it last hold on their 
■tage. But he said, "If I attempt the least innovation ; if I 
frown a shade deeper to night than I frowned last night, in the 
same character, the parterre are sure to call me to order."* 

To judge of the strength and originality of Talma's acting, 
he must be seen with some of the actors of the old school, who 
still preserve something of the cast and character of the days 
of Le Kain and Clairon. Of this class is the venerable St. 
Prix, le doyen du theatre [the senior of the theatre]. This most 
respectable man is held in high consideration by the Parisian 
audience : yet, his always being the proser «« en permanence" of 
every piece, his deep-drawn nasal tones, his psalmodising enun- 
ciation, his mechanical action, his measured walk, his generally 
opening the tragedy with some automaton interlocutor, who 
meets him from the opposite side of the stage, and « imports the 
argument of the play" as Hamlet says, give such an admirable 



* The dignity and tragic powers of Talma, on the stage, are curiously but charm- 
ingly contrasted with the simplicity, playfulness, and gaiety of his mos' un- 
assuming, unpretending manners off the stage. I (who had never seen Corio- 
lanus in the drawing room, but as I had seen Coriolanus in the Forum,) ex- 
pected to meet this great tragedian in private life, in all the pomp and solem- 
nity of his profession ; the cold address, the measured phrase : in a word, I 
expected to meet the actor ; but in the simple, unaffected manners of this 
celebrated person, I fo md only the well-bred and accomplished gentleman. 
Talma had, in his early life, been intimaie with Buonaparte ; and the ex-Em- 
peror, (who never forgot the friends of the young engneer officer,) accorded 
the petites-entries [the private entrances] of the palace to the sovereign of the 
Thiatre-Frangais. Talma saw him constantly ; not, however, to give him lea- 
sons, an invention at which Buonaparte and Talma both laughed ; bin to dis- 
cuss his favourite topic, tragedy, of which he was passionately fond- On this 
subject, however, the actor frequently differed with the Emperor; while the 
Emperor as frequently dictated to the actor, greeting him with " Eh bien! 
Talma, vous rtavez pas use" de vos moyens hier an soir" [Well ! Talma, you did 
not display your powers last evening]. Napoleon always disputed the merits 
of comedy, and observed to a gentleman, from whom I had the anecdote, 
" Si vous pre'fe'rex la comedie, cest parceque vous vieillissez" [If you prefer co- 
medy it is because you are growing old]. — " Et vous, Sire" replied Monsieur 

, "vous aimez la trage'diey parceque vous etes tropjeune" [And you. Sire, 

—you love tragedy besause you are too young]. Buonaparte constantly at- 
tended the iheatres; and frequently without the least parade, and quite unex- 
pected by the audience ; who always received these impromptu visits as marks 
of confidence, and applauded accordingly. 



FRENCH THEATRE. yg 

representation of the heroes of Tom Thumb, that Mr. Noodle 
meeting Mr. Doodle in solemn pomposity of look, word, and mo- 
tion, could not possibly be more humorously represented, in the 
mock heroics of that excellent^burlesque on all tragedy. Such, 
als>, was the acting of La Rive, the immediate successor of Le 
Kain.* 

The enunciation of the French actors, like the rhythm of the 
language, is wholly deficient in emphasis. They have no chro- 
matic tones of feeling and passion ; their scale of sounds, like 
the music of the Chinese, has neither sharp nor flat. A kind of 
nasal psalmodising, alternating with a quick mutter on the top 
of the voice, includes their whole scale of intonation. Their 
tragedy, both in composition and in recitation, seems to reveal 
the whole defect of their language, and proves that it is not the 
language for poetry or music. The Emperor Julian compared 
the natural sounds of the Gauls to the howling of wild beasts ; 
and polished, elegant, and cultivated, as the modern language 
is, the first language in the world for conversation, it is still so 
deficient in natural harmony, and abounds so much in the inhar- 
monic terminations of en, in, oitu un, an, &r. &c, that it wiM not 
admit of being thrown into blank verse ; and it only ceases to be 
prose, when it is fettered by rhyme. The dramatic poet is thus 
tied down to limit his genius to the circumscribed powers of the 
language. Racine ends his Berenice with an «* hclas ;" and Vol- 
taire, in his Mahomet, introduces " pent-etre" more than six 
times, as a rhyme to any thing he can force into the service to 
rhyme with it.f The r, that harsh, growling, snarling, << disso- 
nant consonant," the proscribed of other nations, is the enfant 
cheri of the French alphabet, and their douceur, amour, bonheur 9 
the expressions of their tenderest emotions, depend altogether 
upon this rough auxiliary. 

" Par quels puissants accords." 

" Dans ce sejour des morts. ,> 

" Malgre tous nos efforts" 

" II calme les fureurs de nos transports," 

The French language, as pronounced on the stage, especially 
in tragedy, appeared to me most particularly deficient in accent, 

* And such also was the style of declamation in ihe days of Clairon and Le 
Kain, as described by Marmontel. He observes, that Voltaire himself taught 
Clairon to '* dtclamer avec line lamentation continuelle et monotone" [to declaim 
with a continual monotonous lamentation]. When she adopted a tone some- 
thing less pompous and declamatory, and played Electra, -without a hoop, Vol- 
taire's transports of astonishment and admiration brought tears into his eyes- 

f It rhymes four times to maitre, and is always introduced for that pur 
pose. 

PART II. I, 



74* FRENCH THEATRE. 

and to be made up of syllables, rather than of words. A friend 
of Diderot, who accompanied him to the theatre one night, per- 
ceived that h> put his fingers in his ears during a whole act, 
and yet was affected, evert to tears* at the representation. He 
naturally expressed his astonishment. "You hear nobbing," 
said his friend, « and yet you are deeply affected." — «♦ Chacun a 
sa maniere d'ecouter" [Every one has his own way of hearing], 
replied Diderot ; ** 1 know this tragedy by heart ; I enter strongly 
into the fine pathetic conceptions of the author, and my imagi- 
nation lends an effect to the situations, which the tones of the 
actors, if T listened to them, couldnot express, and perhaps would 
even destroy,* 9 * 

The French actors, though they are generally graceful and 
stately, do not tread the stage with the same ease and freedom 
as the English. Their movements are more precise, their steps 
more measured ; and the rehearsed air of their attitudes con- 
stantly recals the anecdote of Gardel, the dancer, who cried out 
to a prince, who was stabbing a princess, "que vous tuez mal! 
tuez-la done avec grace" [how badly you kill her! kill her grace- 
fully]. 

That magnificent tossing of the arms, by which Kemble, in all 
the grace and variety of his noble and natural action, seems to 
imitate the agitation of the branches of an oak, thrown into ma- 
jestic motion by the play of the passing winds, is wholly un- 
known on the French stage, where the poetical proverb of 

" Chassez le naturel, il revient en galop," 
[When you drive away nature, she comes back at full gallop], 

has, certainly, not yet been illustrated in any instance. In tra- 
gedy the action of the performers, generally speak ing, seems 
confined, from the elbows downward, and is frequently made 
out by striking down the flat of the hand, and pointing the fore- 
finger. There is very little variety in the action ; — none of the 
abruptness of nature, her irregularities or incongruities, Iter 
starts, her graces, or her awkwardnesses j all seems imitative 
and conventional. 

* Returning from the representation of a very heavy modern tragedy, one 
evening, to sup with a very delightful French woman, wl>ose conversation is 
peculiarly characterised by its naivete* I could not help complaining of the 
monotonv, coldness, and want of incident and action, in the piece I had seen ; 
till, impatient of a criticism to which she did not agree, she exclaimed, 
«' VoilA bien une critique a VJnirlaise ! Tenez, Madame J ollez voir Ulphig'uie 
en Tauride! Voild unefille de tut pour vous, la" [You are truly an English cri- 
tic! Well, mad m, go and see Iphigewia at Taurs! There is .1 ^rirl murder- 
ed for you]; supposing that, accustomed to the ^ monstrous forces'' of my na- 
tional theatre, a murder or two was quite necessary, to make any piece inter- 
esting to my ferocious English taste. 



FRENCH THEATRE. y$ 

Having seen a French tragedy acted. I cannot find any thing 
so ridiculous in the request of the man, who, having been pre- 
sent at the ballet, in which the « quHl mouruV 9 * of Corneille was 
executed, intreated Noverre to get his troop to dance the Maxi- 
mes of La Rochefoucault. — Still, however, to observations so 
cursorily made, exceptions are constantly presented, by the ori- 
ginality and genius of some of the actors themselves. La Fond 
is spirited, rapid, and energetic; Mademoiselle Duchenois is 
exquisitely pathetic, « Vart n'est pas fait pour elle f elle n'cn a pas 
besoin" [art is not made for her, she has no need of it]. Mis- 
tress of all the softer passions, I have known even those who did 
not understand a word she uttered, moved to tears at her per- 
formance. All that is elegant in diction, dignified in gesture, 
perfect in grace, majestic in beauty* and symmetrical in form, is 
combined in the acting and appearance of Mademoiselle George. 
Her fine countenance, so little aided by art, that her very colour 
seems to vary in her transparent complexion, is of the true he- 
roic cast ; and is susceptible of all the stronger passions ; but 
most of indignation, or of hatred, brooding and suppressed, but 
ennobled by the passion that awakens it. Her Hermione is one 
of the finest pieces of acting I saw on the French theatre; dress- 
ed in her gothic costume, as Regine, in Charlemagne, or in her im- 
perial robes, as Jlgrippina, 1 think she is one of the finest speci- 
mens of the human form I ever beheld. 

The strict adherence to classical authority, which gives such 
a freezing sameness to the French stage, — the unity of place, 
always representing one cold scene, the eternal hall of the eternal 
palace, is alone relieved by the splendour, and above all, by the 
rigidly characteristic and classical costume, in which I should 
suppose the French theatre a century in advance with England. 
Mademoiselle George would no more appear in her corset and 
shoes, in her Greek and Roman heroines, than she would adopt 
the hoop, formerly worn by the mourning widow of Pompey, or 
the double ruffles carried by Berenice into her Eastern drapery. 
The reform began byLe Kain and Clairon, at the instigation of 
Voltaire and Marmontel, and dramatic costume has been carried 
to the utmost point of perfection by Talma, who has made it his 
peculiar study. In the Roman coins, under the reign of the Em- 
perors and those of the latter ages, which I saw at the hotel de 
Monnaie, I could trace, almost to a fold, the robes and draperies 
of Caesar, Nero, and Charlemagne. This strict adherence to 
costume, is not confined to the superior characters of the piece; 
— it descends to the servants who remove the, chair, or place the 

* This, probably, alludes to "the Horatii"— 
'* What could he do, my lord, when three opposed him ?"-—«* Die !" T. 



70 FRENCH THEATRE. 

throne, and whose dress is not one year in advance with the his- 
toric al personages, on whom they attend. 

I had so long and so often heard of the interest excited in 
Paris, by the first representation of a new tragedy, that I consi- 
dered it a piece of unusual good fortune, that Monsieur Le Mer- 
rier brought out his long expected Charlemagne, during my resi- 
dence in that capital. Notwithstanding the political agitations 
of the day, Charlemagne had become an object of the most in- 
tense and universal interest ; it was even discussed in the sa- 
loons, as being a sort of pierre de touche [touchstone] of political 
sentiment; and its failure or success was a point of solicitude, 
beyond the mere triumph or fall of an ordinary tragedy. 

Its author, Le Merrier, had already almost become an histo- 
rical character; — the brilliant success of his tragedy of Aga- 
memnon — his filling so ably the professor's chair at the Jlthenee, 
as successor to La Harpe, the part he had taken in the revolu- 
tion, but above all, his relations with the late Emperor of 
France, under whose eye Charlemagne was written, together 
with the well known bold and independent prinriples of the au- 
thor, and the eccentricity of his genius and character, combined 
to excite an interest for the first representation of Charlemagne, 
which perhaps had not been felt in Paris, since the Irene of 
Voltaire. 

On the night of the representation, although I took possession 
of my box at half after six o'clock, I found the house already 
overflowing. Even the orchestra was full ; and the murmurs, 
the commotions, gradually swelling into tumult, like the sullen 
rising of a storm, the agitation of the many -waving heads, the 
impatience and energy of the strong marked countenances, gave 
me an impression of the vivacity of a French multitude, wound 
up to its utmost capability of emotion, almost frightful. Long 
before the play began, it was easy to discover the drawing-upof 
the different political parties, as if the " cote du Roi" and " cote 
de la Reine" [the king's side, and the queen's side] were still in 
being — powdered heads, co'effnre aile -de -pigeon [with pigeon-wing 
curls], and stars and crosses, were not the only insignia of one 
pact) ; nor the rough black crops, and black silk handkerchiefs 
of the other; for all external distinction was rather avoided, and 
I was obliged to the gentleman who accompanied me to the thea- 
tre, and who knew all parties, for pointing out to me the differ- 
ent factions, as they ranged themselves in the parterre [pit], or 
appeared in their /o^vs [boxes]. 

The play at length began, and the emotion, far from having 
subsided, was now so intense, that the first scene was very im- 
perfectly heard, and was loudly encored by one party, and 
hissed by another, without being listened to by either. It was 



FRENCH THEATRE, 77 

repeated, and several sentences spiritedly uttered by La Fond, 
as Charlemagne, were called for over again, with the usual « his, 
bis, bis" [again — encore], Buonaparte had been so often likened 
to Charlemagne, that the two Emperors were confounded on the 
scene, and the pours and the contres distributed their hisses and 
applauses, as their party feelings directed. The plot of the piece 
is a conspiracy against the life of Charlemagne, by the brother 
and friends of his beautiful mistress Regine, the mother of his 
son Ungues, whom he had promised to marry, but whom he is 
about to abandon for a political alliance with Irene, the Empress 
of Constantinople. The mere plot was, however, of little mo- 
ment ,* the sentiments incidentally uttered by the characters, and 
the peculiarity of their situations, were every thing. Occasional 
glimpses of the Empress Josephine were caught, in the charac- 
ter of the devoted, hut abandoned Regine. The imperial Irene 
was not without her type. The traitor jistrate, conspiring against 
the man who had raised him, had too manv parallels in France; 
the situation of the little Ungues was not without its original, and 
Charlemagne and Napoleon were every where the same. 

A number of sentiments for and against military despotism, 
thl interference of meddling priests, the influence of bigotry, the 
etfects of conspiracy, and characters of conspirators, all drew 
forth the various and contending passions of the audience, and 
produced an endless uproar and contest ; while every word was 
so guarded, and every personality so delicately avoided, that 
even the minister of the police could not have passed a censure 
on the piece ; and in this management the tact and talent of the 
author chiefly lay. At the lines, 






'Ces furieux 



Vouloient vous arracher la couronne, et les yeux." 
[These furious men would tear from you both your crown and your eyes] 

and 

" II tient le juste en paix, le mechant en effroi, 
Ou diroit a ces traits, que vous peignez le Roi" 

[He keeps the good in peace, the wicked in terror — They will know by these ' 
touches thai you paint the king]. 

the emotion of the royalist party expressed itself almost in 
shouts. But when Charlemagne recounts the benefits of his long 
and able administration, the brilliancy of his conquests, the glory 
with which he had covered his empire, his devotion to the nation, 
and, above all, when he prophecies the place he is to hold with 
posterity in the history of his own times, when all cotemporary 
prejudice shall be laid at rest ; the emotion of the majority of the 



yg FRENCH THEATRE. 

audience became so great, the cries of *» bis, bis" [encore, encore,] so 
violently reiterated, the uproar so wild, so insupportable, that I 
think a more terrible image of popular commotion could scarcely 
beconceived. I saw them in the pit, springing several inches high, 
frantic — wild ! These people, with all their prompt sensibility 
and strong passions thus readily rising to thesurfa e, must make 
the most formidable multitude, when congregated for violent 
purposes, in the world. 

In all this wild contention, however, not the slightest personal 
offence was given ; no riot, no brutality, no rude language ; and 
one party hissed and the otherclapped, and all stamped, jumped, 
grimaced, and shouted, in the most perfect abstraction of prin- 
ciples; — not as enemies, but as partisans; — not as men .hating 
each other, but as enthusiasts, in different causes. While faction, 
liowever, was deciding the merits of a political tragedy, criticism, 
never slumbering in a French pit, frequently united both parties 
in her decisions. At the tautological expressions, " La passion, 
qui m'anime," and a "meurtre irreparable" [The passion which 
animates me, and an irreparable murder], all parties joined 
in shouts of laughter ; — an unfortunate *< non" [no], misplaced, 
nearly damned the piece in the third act. But an eternal dia- 
logue between two conspirators, who illustrated the maxim that 
" I'art d'ennuyer est Part de tout dire" [the art of being tedious is 
the art of saying every thing], — and above all, a long prosing 
monologue, of a sentimental murderer, had such an effect on the 
audience, that convulsions of laughter from every part of the 
house were only interrupted by those fearful sounds to the ear 
of author and actor, — »«* d bas! d bas /" — «• d laporte ! a la porte !*" 
[down ! down ! — to the door ! to the door !] 

The friends of the author, who were numerous, opposed this 
fatal decision with such force, that the fifth act was permitted to 
go on. But the tumults of party, criticism, and friendship, were 
now so great, that not a word that was uttered on the stage could 
be heard, even in the stage box. La Fond, as Charlemagne, which 
he performed hitherto with infinite spirit, and with a brilliant 
rapidity of declamation, that took from the insupportable length 
. of the speeches, was now wholly confounded ; a deadlv paleness 
covered his face, and he stopt abruptly in the middle of his 
speech. Mademoiselle George, as Regine, retaining more pre- 
sence of mind, seemed either to support him by some word, whis- 
pered in his ear, or to give him his caw, — but it was in vain; 
the " bis," and the ** d bas," wholly overpowered him. He ad- 
vanced in great agitation to the front of the stage. The whole 

* " A bas la toile" down with the curtain, — and " a la parte" commanding" 
the exit of the actor, are generally decisive of the fate of the condemned piece. 



TRENCH THEATRE. 79 

house was now standing up ; he declared that " il avait perdu la 
tete," — flint not only his head but his memory was gone. The 
pr inpter presented him the book, ami he looked over iiis part ; 
while Mademoiselle George recommenced her own speech, and 
the piece, amidst hisses and applauses, was thus suffered to 
proceed, and to be finished. Of course it holds its place; for 
the curtain not being dropped during the performance, it was 
saved from failure, if not crowned with success, and was given 
several nights afterwards, with various corrections and omis- 
sions. 

The uproar did not finish with the tragedy ; but I had suffer- 
ed so much from fear, agitation, heat, and noise, that the mo- 
ment the curtain dropt 1 left the box, and accompanied my party 
to the foyer [lobby], to take some refreshments, while the hurri- 
cane t) f the house still assailed our ears. We had all felt infi- 
nite sympathy for the author, whose head we had from time to time 
seen in an opposite box ; and some of my party, who knew him 
intimately, and felt great anxiety about the fate of Charlemagne, 
were going to seek him, to cheer, rather than console him, when 
M. Le Merrier appeared himself, walking up and down the 
foyer, with the beautiful Madame de B * * * # de, talkiug with 
great earnestness and gaiety ; and, at every fresh burst of up- 
roar that reached him from the theatre, stopping to indulge in 
violent fits of laughter, in which he was joined by his fair com- 
panion. Observing the author thus gay r and composed, and 
finding the noise gradually subsiding, we finished our ice and 
capillaire, and returned to our box, contrary to our first inten- 
tion, to see the oldest French play extant, as we had just seen 
the newest ; for " UJixocat Patelin" was the petite piece,* given 
after the first awful representation of Charlemagne, 

" Who is the greatest man that has illustrated my reign V 9 
demanded Louis XIV. of Boilean. « Sire, c'est Moliere" [Sire, it 
it Moliere], was the candid and just reply; — Corneille and Ra- 
cine are allowed to have rivals among their successors; Moliere 
stands alone. Corneille imitated, and Racine paraphrased the 
drama of other nations; Moliere invented; and if France has 
a national theatre, she owes it to Moliere. This great writer, 
stampt with all the original characteristics of genius, is alone, 
of all the dramatists France has produced, comparable to 
Shakspeare. He has not, indeed, his sublimity ; he is defi- 
cient in his pathos ; he wants those powerful touches, which an 

* * VAvocat Patelin" given on our stage, under the title of the " Village 
La-wyer," was played in France for half a century, before it was written 
down ; and it varied according to the talent and humour of the acto v s. — 
About a hundred years back, it was committed to paper, and arranged in its 
present form for the stage. The English farce is a most literal translation 



80 FRENCH THEATRE. 

imagination « that exhausted old worlds, and created new," 
flung in splendid prodigality over pages that breathe of inspi- 
ration, lie wants the fairy powers of his aerial fancy; the 
high-wrought character, and incidents, and stories of Ma( betti, 
Othello, Hamlet, &r. &< . &c. are far beyond the reach of Mo- 
liere's conception* Wholly destitute *of those brilliant concep- 
tions, which glance from ** earth to heaven," and take within 
the range of their combination all that material and immaterial 
worlds present to their view, Moliere was yet like Shakspeare, 
a wit, a humourist, a philosopher, a deep searcher into human 
character, a shrewd detector of the follies and vices that disfigure 
it, and he held up to life and manners a mirror, so faithful to 
their reflection, that his dramas were more calculated to benefit 
the morals, improve the taste, extend the philosophy, correct 
the manners, and benefit the various relations of society of his 
day, than all that ever was written and said by Corneille, Ra- 
cine, Boileau, Pascal, Bossuet, Fenelon, Boudaloue, or all the 
combined talents of the age he adorned, — one simple, modest 
exception only admitted, in favour of the delightful ** philosophe, 
sans s*en donter" [philosopher who never doubted], the admirable 
La Fontaine. 

Amidst the false glare, which has been flung over the reign 
of Louis XIV., the ascribing a more than proportionate share 
of talent to the day he flourished, and the attributing its exis- 
tence to the munificent patronage of the sovereign ; are positions 
equally false and unfounded. A state, just rising out of semi- 
barbarism, presents a strong relief to the lustre of genius, draw- 
ing from the unworked mine of fancy and imagination. But 
there has been in France, as in all nations, a floating capital of 
superior ability, to which the circumstances of the time and state 
of society give their particular character and direction. The 
national stork of talent, which went to make poets and preachers 
under the reign of Louis XIV., directed by interest to conse- 
crate al! their powers in flattering the vanity, or frightening the 
conscience of a superstitious despot ;; in the reigns of his suc- 
cessors, and under the developement of time and circumstances, 
produced a school of moral and political philosophy. And it 
would be impossible to deny the wreath of genius granted to 
Racine, Boileau, and Massillon ; to Voltaire, Montesquieu, 
Turgot, D'Alembert, Diderot, and Lavoisier ; or to exclude 
from this legion of honour Condorcet, Cuvier, La Place, Jussieu, 
anrl Dessaix, men, whose powers for legislation, science, and 
war, belonged to the age and country in which they lived, when 
preaching and poetry no longer found a market for their pro- 
ductions, and were abandoned for pursuits more consonant to 
public utility, and public opinion. 



FRENCH THEATRE. St 

The encouragement of literary men was first urged to Louis 
XIV. by Cardinal Mazarin, who always held before his royal 
pupil's eyes the example of Augustus Csesar. The vanity of 
the sovereign followed up the suggestion of the minister, and all 
poets were pensioned, who flattered the king, and who « de leurs 
hews, sur lui, formerent tous leurs tableaux" [formed all their 
heroes upon his model]. 

La Fontaine, however, the exquisite, the admirable La Fon- 
taine, was suffered to live in obscurity, and to die almost in 
want. He would not, or he could not flatter ; and without the 
talent of sycophancy, he soon found, as he himself observes, 
that 

" Ce n'est pas pres da Roi, q'-'.e l'on fait sa fortune" 
[It is not near the king that a man can make his fortune.] 

And Saint Real, whose works have since been so highly esteemed, 
lived and died in indigent obscurity, under the same reign of 
ostentatious patronage. 

La Bruyere, though in the suite of the Due the Bourgogne, 
was scarcely known to his royal grandsire ; and Moliere had 
already nearly ran his great career of glory, and was crowned 
with fame and opulence beyond his desires, before his pieces 
formed the amusement of the court, before he received a salary 
of forty pounds a year, (1000 francs) as manager of the ** troupe 
de Monsieur" [Monsieur's Company]. Unknown to courtly fa- 
vour, during the greater part of his arduous life, he was denied 
Christian burial, after his death, in the Augustan age of France ! 
For, though the King condescended to solicit the archbishop of 
Paris, the profligate Harlay, to permit the rites of sepulture to 
the remains of the greatest genius his reign produced, the 
haughty prelate refused the request of this despotic monarch, of 
this tyrant of the people, and slave of the church-. In Eng- 
land, the remains of Moliere would have been inurned amidst 
the ashes of her kings, and his tomb would have arisen between 
the monuments of her Shakspeare and her Garrick. Oh ! long 
may that land preserve her liberty, whose free government alone 
is favourable to the high career of genius, which could alone 
have produced a Shakspeare, and organised a people, capable 
of appreciating his genius, and revering his memory. 

Moliere was the creator of the French comedy, and, it may 
be said, the founder of a national theatre. It was, as the stroll- 
ing leader of a little itinerant band, rambling from province to 
province, that he composed and acted his «* Etourdi ;" his » Depit 
Amourenx ;" his inimitable « Precienses Ridicules ;" his « Me- 
decin Malgre lui," and many other of his best comedies; and his 

PAltT II. M 



8% FRENCH THEATRE. 

debut in Paris was a complete failure. It was not till after 
many Struggles, that the force of his genius bore all before it. 
It was long after he had banished the gross farces of Grros- 
Guiltaume and Turlupin from the stage, and had founded, with 
his own company, and his >\vn pieces, a French comedy as it is 
represented in the present day. by the name of the Troupe de la 
Comedie Franqaise, that he grew into favour with the people, or 
attracted the attention of the court. He was already entertain- 
ing the marshals of France at his villa, near Paris, when the 
sun of royal favour first turned its rays on him. When he first 
arrived with his troupe in Paris, in 1635, he played at the sign 
of La Croix Blanche, in the faubourg St. Germain. He did not 
receive his patent from the king for his theatre, in the Palais 
Royal, till the year 1660. 

Among the expectations which accompanied me to Paris, that 
of seeing a comedy of Moliere's played at the Theatre Franqais 
was certainly not the faintest; and the first of his pieces I saw 
performed was his inimitable *< Tartuffe." It was a great dis- 
appointment to be disappointed with Moliere, on his own stage, 
and vyith Tartuffe, cast with all the strength of the company of 
the Comedie Franqaise; but not a scene, not a situation, not a 
character answered my expectation. I had already been de- 
lighted with the pure and excellent comedy of some of their mo- 
dern pieces, and their exquisite comic actors; I could ha>e at- 
tended-the representation of the Mariage de Figaro every night 
it was played, and could have seen Michaud, Brunet, and Potier 
for ever. And yet the inimitable Tartuffe, inimitably acted, (as 
I was assured by some first-rate French critics) almost put me 
to sleep. 

The grand comedies of Moliere, and particularly his Tartuffe, 
are nearly as classical in rule and arangement, as the tragedies 
of Racine. The dialogues are almost as cold, and the mono- 
logues as long. Nothing can be more just, more philosophic, 
than the disquisition of Cleante upon the true character of reli- 
gious hypocrisy. 



-" Ces francs charlatans, ces de"vots de place, 



De qui le sacrilege est trompeuse grimace." 
[These vile quacks, these hireling devotees, with whom sacrilege is hypo- 
critical grimace]. 

And this speech is read in the closet, with all the admiration 
merited by the satires of Donne, Pope, or Juvenal. But this ad- 
mirable treatise given in rhyme, and in little less than seventy 
lines, while the person to whom it is addressed, is obliged to 
listen in cold attention, is at least foreign to our English ideas 
of genuine comedy; and fails to amuse on the stage, though it 



FRENCH THEATRE. 83 

cannot fail of delighting in the study. Rhyme, too, (to an En- 
glish ear, at least) seems so inapplicable to the free, unfettered 
genius of comedy, which, being the reflection of life and man- 
ners, should partake of their native and incidental irregulari- 
ties, that the serious rhyming comedies of Moliere always ap- 
peared to me poetical satires, sententiously recited ; and scarce- 
ly more dramatic tlian Johnson's London, or Churchill's Ros- 
ciad.% 

There was no instance in which the esprit de systeme, omnipo- 
tent in its influence over the French stage, struck me so forci- 
bly as in the performance of Moliere's comedies. The style of 
acting them is evidently traditional and conventional ; and has 
descended to each successive « troupe," with the periwigs and 
ruffles of Louis XIYth's day. For it is curious to observe, that 
while the Elmires and Mariannes are dressed like modern fine 
ladies, the young ValSre makes love in a toupet, et ailes de pigeon 
[a toupee, and pigeon- wings], an embroidered coat, and long 
sword: that Cleante is ready dressed for a levee of Madame de 
Maintenon, and Orgou ready habited to await the orders of 
Pere-de-la-Chaise. The business of the stage appears very evi- 
dently traditional. In the little quarrel between Valere and Ma- 
rianne, certain evolutions are performed that seem, by their for- 
mality, to have descended from the original representation at 
Versailles; and when Dorine at last effects a reconciliation be- 
tween the pouting lovers, the manner in which they advanced 
to each other, with measured step and calculated movements, 
and then suddenly embraced, had all the automaton air of two 
puppets, moved with much less ingenuity than that, with which 
I have seen Punch embrace his adversary, the Devil, in one of 
their celebrated rencontres, when Gilles, with his usual admira- 
ble sang-froid, leaves them to fight it out, with <« Jlrrangez-vous 
ensemble. Messieurs" [Arrange yourselves together, gentlemen]. 

From the scene, where Elmire undertakes to discover the per- 
fidy of Tarhiffe to her husband, I expected much; even after I 
had been disappointed through four successive acts. But, af- 
fecting as it is in perusal, it was in action, flat, cold and inef- 
fective. Mademoiselle Mars, as Elmire, received the declaration 
of Tartuffe, and reached the most interesting and piquant point 
of the denouement, with the most freezing inanimation. Her 
beautiful eyes, generally so rapid and so shifting in their bril- 

* The most humorous and amusing of Moliere's comedies are in prose. 
While 1 was in Paris, a Monsieur Demontbrun versified the " Medecin J\[al- 
gre lui" [The Physician in spite of himself— adapted to the English sape by 
Fielding, under the title of The Mock Doctor]: it was only played <hree 
times ; and the wits of Paris gave it the title of " Le J\'Udecin en vers, Malgre 
.lui" [The Physician in verse in spite of himself]- 



84 FRENCH THEATRE. 

liant glances, were here fixed and at rest; and when she occa- 
sionally coughed, or raised up the cloth of the table, under 
which Orgou lies concealed, it seemed as if she took her cue from 
the prompter, and performed this little bye-play entirely by his 
dictation.* 

The French critics assured me that nothing could be finer than 
her acting in this scene; that, already acquainted with the inten- 
tions of Tartuffe, she should receive his declaration passively, 
without emotion, and without betraying either triumph or sur- 
prise. All bye-play was here inadmissible, and the severity of 
French criticism admits no intelligence between the performer 
and the audience. The keeping, indeed, in this instance, is so 
cold and rigid, that neither accentuation nor emphasis are ad- 
mitted in the dialogues of genteel comedy ; and, though the enun- 
ciation of the first class of actresses, or, as they are called, in 
the technicality of the French theatre, the " premiers roles, or 
"jeunes premieres" [the first characters, or first youthful char- 
acters], is extremely elegant and pure, yet they recite with the 
same little monotonous utterance, on the top of their voice, as 
a French woman of high fashion affects in her boudoir, without 
cadence or inflection ; and they use so little action, that the per- 
fection of genteel comedy, on the stage, is a fair uncharged 
transcript of the manners of the salon. To a taste, formed upon 
the broad humour and high colouring of the English stage, this 
style of acting appears cold, tame, and even tiresome, and it 
was not until I had seen several French comedies performed, and 
wearied my French friends by observations on the absence of 
nature, in all the acting 1 had seen on the great national thea- 
tre, that 1 learned, by comparing the dramatic representation 
with the real life and manners of French society, that nature 
adopts a diversified mode of expression for the same feelings, in 

* I have no recollection of Miss Farren; but, from all I have heard of her 
style of acting, Mademoiselle Mars is the Miss Farren of the French stage. 
Of the perfection of her acting, I never heard a dissentient opinion- And I 
have heard more than cine French Duchesse observe, that Mademoiselle Mars, 
on the sU;ge, is whatever) French woman of fashion might wish to be, in the 
saloon. Her rival, Mademoiselle Le Vert, is accused of being less nave, less 
lady-like, and too high in her colouring. Mademoiselle Le Vert would be 
irresistible on the English stage, and alwa\s is so on the French stage, to the 
foreiifn part of the audience. She is the Miss Ue Camp of the TWatve Fvan- 
gais; full of accomplishment, which she incidentally displays in her charac- 
ter; — singing, not finely but deliciously ; — playing the harp tastefully; — full 
of life, animation, and spirit, always diverting the attention from the actress 
to the woman, and inspiring the desire to follow her from the stage to her 
loge [box], to converse with one, whose pleasantry and good sense seem al- 
ways prevailing through the character she ;.dopts. The French critics, how- 
ever, deny the palm of originality to Mademoiselle Le Vert, and observe that 
she is but an admirable and close imitation of the late celebrated comic ac 
tress, Mademoiselle Contat, 



FRENCH THEATRE. 85 

different countries, and that what would be true to nature, on 
an English stage, as applied to genteel comedy, would be very 
false to it, on a French one. Th^ error of judgment, however, 
lies principally in a confusion of terms, and nature is substituted 
for life; for genuine comedy takes the relations of civilised and 
modern society for its subject, and the actor embodies them in 
the manners and forms of the country, for which they are written, 
and to which he represents. 

It is, however, extremely observable, even to a foreign spec- 
tator, that the style of acting the serious comedies of Moliere is 
wholly different from that pursued in modern and lighter pieces. 
Modern manners are there copied with greater fidelity, and eve- 
ry thing is less conventional and more faithful to life. In this 
style of acting Michaud is unrivalled, and his pure, genuine, and 
truly comic humour is wholly unsupported by any attempt at 
grimace or overcharging. Fleury, in a higher cast of parts, if 
less broadly amusing, is not less excellent and eminent. The 
Theatre Franqais, the first theatre of the nation, is confined to 
tragedy, and the higher walks of comedy, and holds a distinct 
and superior place in public estimation over all the other spec- 
tacles, the Opera, or Jlcademie de Musique, excepted. It has 
neither manager nor proprietor ; it belongs to a company, com- 
posed of the principal actors and actresses, under the title of 
Societaires, who share the receipts of the house, after the expen- 
ditures are defrayed. 

The strictest propriety, the most delicate observance of 
bienseance, governs the audience of the Theatre Franqais, and 
women of the highest rank go to the theatre, and enter their 
boxes alone, in the full confidence that they are there equally safe 
from intrusion, insult, or annoyance, as in their own houses. 
Some years ago, the parterre [pit] gave a proof of its gallantry, 
by obliging two gentlemen to quit the front row of the box they 
occupied, in favour of two ladies, who had come in late, and 
seated themselves in a back row ; and I myself was present, wiien 
an instance of attention to moral decency was observed, which 
was at once curious and singular, in a people so vehemently ac- 
cused of having no morals. 

During the performance of the second act of the Tartuffe, an 
English nobleman, of fashionable notoriety, entered one of the 
boxes, on the second tier, which are particularly exposed, with 
a female, whose notoriety was not stnctly or merely fashionable, 
and who was also rather less severely draped, than it is the cus- 
tom for women of any description to appear in the public places 
of Paris. The parterre immediately took the alarm ; no French- 
man dare appear in public with an entretenue, in Paris ; and it 
was very evident that no indulgence would be granted to an 



30 FRENCH THEATRE. 

Englishman so situated. For, though respect to Moliere kept the 
parterre quiet during the performance trt'Tartuffe, anil confined 
their strictures to pointing their lorgnettes [eve-glasses] to the box 
of Lord * * *, the moment the curtain dropped, the tumult of 
displeasure was universal from every part. Although a Scotch 
gentleman in my box, who knew Lord * * #, immediately per- 
ceived he was the unpopular object of attention, I thought the 
circumstance so improbable, that 1 asked one of the most tumul- 
tuous censors in the gallerie, under our box, what was the cause 
of the uproar. He answered laughingly, *« C'est cet Anglais et 
son amie, dont le Jichu n'est pas trop bien arrange" [It is an ftng- 
lishman and his friend, whose handkerchief is not too well ar- 
ranged]. Lord # * # and his frail companion seemed, at first, 
quite unconscious that they were the objects of the commotion ; 
and when they leaned over the box, to observe who was, the 
shouts of laughter and the uproar became so great, that they at 
last took the hint, and retired. 

While the derant de la scene [the front of the scene] is, at 
least, as decent as it ever was, I am told that all behind the cur- 
tain is infinitely improved ; and, at least, more apparently con- 
sistent with good manners. It is a sort of fashion now, in stray- 
ing from the rigid path of morality, to err by « stealth, and blush 
to find it fame." And though the Lucretias of the theatres are 
neither more cruel, nor more rigid, than in the days of the 
Couvreurs, the Fells, and the Sophie Arnoults, there are no sul- 
tans des coidisses, like the Due de Richelieu ; and the admittance 
once so liberally granted and sought for behind the scenes, to 
the aimables roues of Paris, is now greatly restricted ; and, if 
the morale of the theatre is not intrinsically improved, the 
exterior forms of its arrangements have lost nothing, by the 
general improvement in public morals, which have taken place 
in France within the last thirty years. The Theatre Franyiis, 
during the reign of the ex-emperor, took the title of " Comediens 
ordinaires de I'Empereur." 

#,V, J£, 4£» J£ JW, -AJ, ^ JUb JJb 

•v\" "a* 'w w *7r *«■ *J? vr w 

The Odeon, or theatre royal, the second in point of rank, I 
believe, after the Theatre Franqais, owes its Greek name to the 
classical associations of the revolution : it was thus denomina- 
ted, in allusion to the Athenian edifice, raised to celebrate some 
solemn festivals, by Pericles. The patent of its royalty is doubt- 
less granted to its loijalty; it being the resort of all that is most 
loyal in the capital, namely, the inhabitants of the faubourg St. 
Germain, in which it is situated. The acting is generally reck- 
oned below mediocrity, and the pieces usually are of the same 
stamp, except when M. Picard, the administrateur- general of the 
establishment, brings forward some of his own excellent little 



FRENCH THEATRE. gj 

pieces, which have acquired for him the flattering sobriquet of 
the petit Moliere" [nick-name of the little Moliere]. 

The Odeon, notwithstanding its loyalty, was generally very 
thinly attended, until a very singular piece brought out there, 
during my residence in Paris, turned the tide of popularity and 
fashion for a moment in its favour, and all parties and all fac- 
tions hurried to the Odeon, to see the Chevalier de Canolle. This 
piece, for a time, produced the same effect on the French public, 
as Cato had done, on the English — when the tories and the whigs 
went equally to applaud sentiments, which each adopted as their 
own. The Chevalier is founded on a very slight historical fact, in 
the history of the wars of the Fronde, but in the spirited and 
gallant character of the Chevalier himself — the victim of faction, 
and condemned under the law of reprisal to be publicly executed, 
the public chose to see the character and misfor'unes of the late 
Marshal Ney. What gave colour to this supposition, was the 
coincidence of the situation, and even the words of the Chevalier, 
and of the Marechal, a few minutes before the intended execution 
of both. When the fatal hour arrived, which was to terminate 
the life of JNey, the officers and guard, who came to conduct him 
to the place of exec utum, found him still asleep, for the dawn had 
only just broke. One of the officers complimented him on a state 
of mind, which, in a moment like that, enabled him to indulge in 
a repose so calm and profound ; — the Marechal replied with a 
smile, " Je m'essayais [I am attempting it— I am trying], in al- 
lusion to that long sleep he was then rehearsing, and as if indeed 
death was to him 

" To sleep — no more !" 

In the last act of the Chevalier Canolle, he is found asleep by 
his mistress and his friends, who come to bid him a last farewel, 
a few minutes before his execution. To the observation of his 
young mistress : « Vous dormiez," [you sleep], he replies smiling- 
ly, « Je m'essayais." The effect of this answer was still electric, 
even when I saw the " Chevalier de Canolle," after it had been 
played above twenty nights ; and, though the Duke and Dutchess 
de Berri, and the greatest part of the court were present. Another 
speech had also its immediate application, and a model instantly 
found for the following observation : — « J'admire, comme voire 
sexe, qu 9 on appelle faible, et que je trouve charrnant, se prononce 
toujours, tout en douceur, pour les partis les plus violents?" [I 
wonder how your sex (which is called weak, and which I think 
charming), can with all its softness declare for the most violent 
parties]. 

To counteract the • occasional triumph of one party, every 




88 



FRENCH THEATRE. 



passage of loyalty was applauded vehemently by the other ; and 
when, at the winding up of the catastrophe, hy a reconciliation 
of all parties, the mayor of Bourdeaux declares, that cries of 
</.vive le Roi" resounded through the city, the shout of " vive le 
Eoi" was, indeed, echoed, with a thousand reiterations, through 
the house — every white handkerchief in the faubourg St. Ger- 
main waved over the boxes, and "vive Henri Quatre" was 
commanded at least, a dozen times during the evening, from the 
orchestra, and accompanied by shouts of loyal enthusiasm. 

The judicious opinion of Rousseau, on the subject of French 
music, which had nearly proved so fatal to his liberty and life, 
and which excited more persecution than either his religious or 
political heresies, has long been confirmed by the decision of 
Europe, and is now 7 scarcely disputed by the French themselves. 
The French, observes Rousseau,** n* ayant 9 etnepouvant, avoir une 
melodie a enx, dans une tangue qui n? a point d' accent, sur une poesie 
manured qui ne connut jamais la nature, Us n'imaginent d 9 effets 
que cenx de V harmonic, etsont si malhenreux dans leur pretentions 
que cette harmonie mime qn' Us cher client, leur echappe" [not having 
and being unable to have a melody of their own, in a language 
which has nothing musical, with an affected versification which 
knows nothing of nature, they can imagine no effect but that of 
harmony, and they are so unlucky in their attempts, that even 
that harmony eludes their grasp]. It belongs, therefore, to the 
national solecisms of this ingenious people, that, with a language 
neither harmonious nor accentuated, and, strictly speaking, 
without national music, they should yet be almost the only 
country in Europe, (Italy always excepted as the natural region 
of melody and musical science) which boasts of & grand national 
opera. 

Opera, however, and Greek tragedy were both given, almost 
at the same time, to the French people, as an ordinance from 
the government. Royal despotism interfered with both, and 
France owes to the ministry of Mazarin the origin of an opera, 
which he first introduced at court to flatter the musical taste of 
his royal mistress, Anne of Austria. The music and the singers 
were both brought from Italy, and the first piece represented, in 
1645, was the » Finta Pazza," the origin, perhaps, of Paesiello's 
delicious « Nina pa%%a per amore." But the beauty of Italian 
music must have found but few votaries ; for within a \evy few 
years after its introduction, scarcely a trace of its influence r 
mained ; and the heavy gorgeous edifice of the " Academic Royale 
de musique" rose out of the early ruins of this fragile temple of 
taste and harmony. Louis XIV. not only took the French opera 
under his special protection, but when Sourdae added his splen- 
did machinery, and Benseradc his ballets, to the musical trage- 



FRENCH THEATRE. QCJ 

dies of" Andromedi and "ISJlriafiu" (whose chants and chorusses 
must have resembled the psalmody of a parish clerk, and the 
nasal unisons of his braying choir) the king then condescended 
to dance himself in the divertissement. Letters patent indicated, 
that persons of the highest rank might take a part in the repre- 
sentation, without derogating from their nobility ; and the illus- 
trious de Montmorency and de Villeroi were seen performing 
in the opera of « Les fetes de V Amour et de Bacchus." 

Cambert, whose compositions, i believe, are now wholly un- 
known, appeal's to have been the court composer of the day, 
until Lulli obtained letters patent as director of the opera ; and 
in conjunction with Rameau produced that "lourde psalmodie" 
[heavy psalmody], as Rousseau calls it, which supplied the ope- 
ra, and governed the musical taste of France for nearly a cen- 
tury ; and which St. Preux humorously advises his Julie to col- 
lect and commit to the flames, «< qfin que tant de glace puisse y 
bruler, et donner de la chaleur 9 au moins une fois" [that so much 
ice may burn, and give heat, at least for once]. 

The arrival of an Italian buffa company in Paris, who were 
permitted to play at the theatre of the opera, though extremely 
inferior, and though their compositions were miserably executed 
by the French orchestra, gave a blow to the French opera, from 
which it never recovered. m II n 9 y eut personnel says Rous- 
seau, speaking of the French music, " qui put endurer la truine- 
rie de leur mnsique, apresV accent vifct marque deVItalienne; sitbt 
que les bouffons avaient fori, tout s 9 en alloit" [There is no one who 
can endure the dulness of their music, after the marked and 
striking notes of the Italian ; as soon as the bouffons had finish- 
ed, all the audience went away]. 

Paris soon divided into two formidable musical factions, 
which, however, were not without their political colour. The 
privileged class cried out against innovation, even in crotchets 
and quavers; and the noble and the rich, the women and the 
court, clung to the monotonous discords of Lulli, Rameau, and 
Mondonville, as belonging to the ancient and established order 
of things ; while the musical connoisseurs and amateurs, the 
men of talent, genius, and letters, were entluisiastic for nature, 
taste, and Italian music* The establishment of the German 
composer, Gluck, in France, under the protection of the queen 
Marie Antoinette, and the arrival of Piccini from Naples, occa- 
sioned a final revolution in French music, and was the origin of 
that famous quarrel, which so long agitated the public mind in 

* When Marmontel proposed D'Alembert to Madame de Pompadour, as 
worthy of a pension granted to men of letters on the Merciire de France, she 
refused him, because, she said, " he was passione pour Id muaique Italienne" 
[he was a passionate admirer of Italian music]. 
PART II. N 



yO FRENCH THEATRE. 

France, as if the most sacred rights of the nation had been the 
point in uVbate. 

Italian music had already been adapted to French words, by 
Gretry, at the comic opera. — The "Roland" of Marmontel and 
l J i< cini w **s the first attempt at a union of the French tragedy 
with Italian composition, ever brought forward on the grand 
opera, and in spite of the cabals of the court and the Gluckists, 
** Roland" was crowned with complete success. 

The discordant period of the revolution was unfavourable to 
the Jicademie de Mnsique, which then took the name of <* L'Ope* 
ra" It u as. as tin Jicademie imperiale dejllnsique, that it reco- 
vered its ancient splendour; and that the musical taste of France 
received a brilliant improvement from the combined talents of 
Paesiello, Cimerosa, Cherubini, and Paer. 

Buonaparte was in music a true Italian, and his despotic in- 
terference with the composers, whom he brought from Italy and 
liberally recompensed, was consonant at once to his taste for the 
art, and love of dictation. He had himself been a performer on 
the piano-forte ; and knew enough of the theory and terms of the 
science, to be enabled to dictate even to the genius of Paesiello, 
without betraying more ignorance of the mechanism of the sub- 
ject, than might be permitted in an Emperor. I have heard his 
anxiety about the operas of Paesiello, and his arguments with 
that delightful composer, related with great humour by those 
who were present when, by special command, he brought his 
half-finished operas to the Thuilleries, for the inspection and 
critic ism of the imperial amateur. The composer was quite as 
independent as the sovereign was dictatorial ; and argued out 
every point, bar by bar, and note by note. Sometimes Buona- 
parte demanded the erasure of half or a whole scene, exclaim- 
ing, as he measured the score with his fingers, — *< From this to 
this is good ; it means something; it is melody: — hut from this to 
this is mere science; there- is neither expression nor passion; it 
is not dramatic, — it will not do." Paesiello seldom complied 
implicitly; and the composer and the critic usually compromised 
the difference between melody and harmony, and science and 
expression, as well as their respective predilections would allow 
them, by each yielding something of their own judgment to the 
opinion of the other. 

1 had the pleasure of knowing Cherubini during my residence 
in Paris, and mentioning these anecdotes to him, he so far cor- 
roborated them, as to speak with great indignation of the Em- 
peror's interference with the compositions of a man of Paesiello's 
eminence and unrivalled genius; while he inveighed against his 
despotism, in preventing that \eneiahle person from returning 
to his own country, a permission which he had in vain solicited. 



FRENCH THEATRE. g.j_ 

"Napoleon," added Cherubim, «• frequently endeavoured to die- 
tale to me, as he had done to Paesiello. He loved only une musique 
assoupissante [a sleepy sort of music]; he required that an opera 
should he a succession of andantes or motivos of marked and ac- 
centuated expressions, and demanded the sacrifice of harmon) and 
effect to melody. One day that he complained to me of the strength 
and fulness of some of my accompaniments, and observed that they 
were " trop bruyautes" [too noisy],! could not help replying: 
« Sire, vous voulez que noire musique vous laisse libre de rever aux 
affaires d'etat"* [Sire, you wish that our music shoulri leave you 
at liberty to meditate upon the affairs of the nation]. 

From all indeed I could learn of the influence, which Buona- 
parte assumed over music in France, his object was to establish 
that style of enunciation and expression, which Rousseau, so 
many years before, had so strongly re< om mended and illustrated, 
in the recitatives of his own <*Dm/i du Wittag&f 9 [Village Conju- 
rer], a style which Mr. Moore, who has so many claims to re- 
putation, has introduced into English composition, by the exam- 
ple of his own original and exquisite melodies, and which is 
gradually giving its tone and character to the music of the pre- 
sent day. This style, dictflted by taste and nature, and speak- 

* This little conversation took place in the music room of M. Gerard, at 
one of his delightful musical parties. The celebrated Paer was at the piano- 
forte, and 1 was greatly amused to observe Cherubim seating himself opposite 
to his rival composer, and listening to Ins most wonderfd performance, with 
all the iransports of a young pupil, who for the first lime listens to his master. 
The rhapsodies of Paer on the piano-forte are, I believe, without any parallel 
in musical performance, and his impoviso accompaniments, that night, to some 
of the finest scenes of his own u Grisilda" were rich, varied, and brilliant, be- 
yond, I should think, even his own power of noting down in score. He went 
through some caricata songs with infinite humour. On the excellence of his 
numerous operas it is unnecessary to dwell. He taught the Empress Marie 
Louise, during her residence in Fiance, and enjoyed places of great emolu- 
ment under the imperial government. 

f A French lady, witH whom Buonaparte was no very distinguished favour* 
ite, talking to me one day of his despo'ism and his talents, observed, " Ma- 
datne, c'est la moitiS d'un grand homme" [Madam, he is the half of a great man]. 
—The man, who at the head of a great empire, c«uld plan great and lasting* 
works, conquer nations, and yet talk astronomy with La Place, tragedy with 
Talma, music with Cherubini, painting with Guard, virtu with Denon, and 
literature and science with any one who wo<ild listen to him. was certainly 
" out of the roll of common mem," even allowing he had taken " the royal road 
to learning," and was, as he is said to have been, but superficially acquainted 
with the various subjects, which engrossed his restless and all-grasping capa- 
city. But as one of the many enemies, whom power had armed against the 
liberties of mankind, his brilliant qualities give but a deeper shadow to his 
faults. It was these qualities that dazzled the nation he first eminently serv- 
ed, and then despotically governed, and thus marred the progress of an event 
which, forwarded by time and experience, mignt have erminated in the ex- 
ample of a wise and beneficent government, belonging to ihe genius and spirit 
of the age out of which it arose, and favourable alike to liberty, illumination, 
and happiness. 



Qg FRENCH THEATRE. 

ing to the passions and to the heart, without abandoning the aid 
of science, or grace of harmony, prevails with a very obvious 
influence over the works of the modern French composers, who 
write wholly in the Italian school, and breathes in the flowing 
and gracious strains of Blangini ; it softens the brilliant verve 
[whim] of Boieldieu, and is discoverable in the melodies of Ber- 
ton, and the charming romances of Lambert, while the fine har- 
monies of Mehul, ami the grave and learned compositions of Le 
Sueur, are less susceptible of its influence, and almost incom- 
patible with its genius. 

My first time of visiting the Mademie Royale de Musique, 
(which, though a French opera, holds the same rank in the world 
of fashion in Paris, as the Italian opera in London,) was mere- 
ly accidental. I was preparing for one of the petits spectacles, 
when tickets were sent me for the box of the gentilhommes ordi- 
naires du Roi, at the opera; and I arrived at the theatre, with- 
out knowing what pieces were to be represented. I was de- 
lighted to find I had come in at the first scene of the « Devin du 
Village" which was given as a prelude before " Oedipe a Co- 
lonne" [CEdipus at Coionna], and the superb ballet of " Flore et 
Zephire" [Flora and Zephyrus], 

The sensation excited by the first performance of this piece at 
the court theatre of Fontainbleau, before the King and Madame 
de Pompadour, can easily be conceived, when the superiority of 
its composition over the music of that day is understood. The 
music, even now, appears full of simplicity and expression, and 
fairly stands the test with Italian composition. The little ballad 
of" J'ai perdu mon serviteur" [I have lost my servant], which 
Rousseau says, Louis XV. was wont to sing, " avec la voix la 
plusfausse de son royaume" [with the falsest voice in his king- 
dom], particularly interested me, as being a favourite of the au- 
thor, and the first air he composed for the opera. It is well 
known, that Rousseau made more by this Ifttle piece, which he 
composed in a few weeks, than by his " Emile" which cost him 
twenty years' meditation. Notwithstanding, however, its me- 
rit, the secret of its profits lay in its fashion at the court, by Ma- 
dame de Pompadour having played herself the part of Colette. 
Had 1 commanded the performance of the evening, I should un- 
doubtedly have fixed on the Devin du Village,— the audience 
seemed to be of the same opinion. The music of *• Oedipe" is 
by Sacchini, and its fine chorusses were got up and executed in 
a style infinitely superior to any ch >russes I ever heard n the 
Italian opera of London ; the French opera being entirely sup- 
plied, even in its most subordinate parts, from the Conserva- 
toire de Mnsique, where four hundred pupils receive their musi- 
cal education, and furnish the choirs of the cathedrals and the 



FRENCH THEATRE. 93 

national oppra, with well-taught and scientific singers: the cho- 
russes, therefore, at the opera are always Well got up, but some 
of the principal singers, most particularly the women, belong 
only io the French school, and could be heard out only by a 
French audience. 

It would be in vain to look for, in the French opera, 

" E'l cantar che nell' anima si sente." 

The despair of Ariadne, the tenderness of Antigone, all are 
screamed on the top of the voice, without flexibility, execution, 
taste or expression; nothing seems necessary to form the prima 
donna, but those « eclats de vows" [flashes of voices — bursts of 
voice], which the French fifty years back preferred to every 
other style of vocal exertion; and to which they are still so in- 
dulgent, that it often struck me, the more their principal female 
singers sung out of tune, the more they gave loose to their en- 
ailleries [screams], the more the audience applauded. 

Paris, however, has an audience, as it has a public, for every 
thing. The worst style, the most untunable voices are not only 
tolerated, but applauded, at the French opera to-night. To-mor- 
row the most rigid, the severest criticism governs the public 
judgment, at the Italian opera : the most delicate division of a 
semi-tone is there appreciated, and the audience appear composed 
of a colony from Naples or Palermo. Still, however, the French 
opera, the Academie Royale de Musique, is the national opera of 
France. The costume, the acting, and the machinery are all 
superior in splendour and arrangement to the opera of London. 
The dancing, which seems to constitute the most material part 
of both exhibitions, as it is executed in Paris, has no parallel 
in the world. The proscenium is more elegant, brilliant, and 
attractive in the London Opera House— the audience looks there 
more distinguished and better dressed — and the beauty of the fe- 
male pari so superior to that of every other nation, that it makes* 
perhaps, the most brilliant and attractive part of the represen- 
tation. 

I saw nothing, indeed, in Paris, that approached to the gene- 
ral eclat, splendor, and elegance of the Opera House of London, 
but the court theatre of the Thuilleries, at which each company 
from the great theatres performed in turn, during the festivities 
given on the occasion of the marriage of the Due de Berri. The 
arrangements of this comparatively small theatre, combine all 
that is chaste, elegant, li^ht, and splendid, in architecture and 
decoration. Illuminated with its thousand lights reflected from 
their crystal branches, it appears some fairy palace of Parian 



94< FRENCH THEATRE. 

marble, and burnished gold, at onre noble and simple, magnifi- 
cent and tasteful. To this splendid theatre no one was admit- 
ted, who had not been presented at court, and received a special 
invitation through the premier gentilhomme da la chambre [first 
gentleman of the chamber], or through their own ambassador. 
Every one appeared in full court dress, and the boxes, or ra- 
ther the gallery, which was round the theatre, is so constructed, 
that every individual is distinctly seen. The king and the roy- 
al family occupy a centre box on one side, the ministers and 
ambassadors occupied a box on the left hand of the King, the 
French duchesses on the right; for the men do not mingle with 
the women under the present regime, in the court of the most 
gallant country in the world. The parterre was exclusively oc- 
cupied by the male part of the audience. 

The first night I received my billet for one of these court plays, 
went particularly early to observe the etiquette of arrange- 
ment. The halls, the corridors, and anti-rooms were guarded 
by files of soldiers. The Cent Suisses [Hundred Swiss], in their 
ancient and most picturesque dress, which has not been changed 
since the days of Henry IV. were on duty. The noblemen in 
waiting, the huissiers, the officers of the court, appeared every 
where officiously attentive and polite. The ladies were con- 
ducted to their seats without any precedence or order, and were 
presented with books of the entertainment. But it was very 
obvious that the Duchesses took their tabourets, in their own ex- 
clusive box, with a certain little air of triumph, and conscious- 
ness of superiority very excusable in those, who for twenty 
years had lamented over this forfeited distinction, the precious 
object of hereditary ambition. — I observed among them one of 
my own beautiful countrywomen, who has lately wreathed her 
fair brows with the ducal coronet of France, 

" Though last, not least." 

On the arrival of the royal family, a huissier came to the 
front of the royal box, and announced " Le Roi." Every one 
arose to receive him, and to return his always very gracious and 
smiling salute. The royal family ranged themselves on either 
side of his majesty :— the Duchesse d'Angouleme and Due de 
Berri on one side. — The Duchesse de Berri and Monsieur d'Ar- 
tois and Angouleme on the other, Monsieur Talleyrand, in his 
official costume, as grand chambellan, took his wonted station be- 
hind the king's chair. 

I had frequently seen this celebrated personage, and future 
historical character, at court, upon other public occasions, in 
the bustle of processions, at the nuptial pomp of royalty, under 



FRENCH THEATRE. 

95 
the holy dome of Notre Dame, at the deepest tragedy, at the 
liveliest comedy, amidst the solemnity of the royal chapel, and 
the revelry of the feasting court — .hut I saw him always the 
same; cold, motionless; not abstracted, but unoccupied; not 
absent, but unmoved ; — no tint varying the colourless hue of his 
livid complexion, no expression marking its character on his 
passive countenance. His figure seemed the shell of a human 
frame, despoiled of its organic arrangements, or, if the heart beat, 
or the brain vibrated, no power of penetration could reach the 
recesses of the one, or guess at the workings of the other. From 
the mind of this man the world seemed contemptuously shut out 
— and if this most impassable form and face indicated character 
or pinion, one would have thought, at the first glance, this is 
surely the being who has said : " speech was given to man, to 
conceal his thoughts." It seemed as if the intimacy of love, the 
confidence of friendship, the community of counsel, could never 
draw the mind to that countenance, which amidst all the vicis- 
tudes, versatility, changes, and contrasts in the life of its owner, 
had never been 

" A book, in which men read strange things* 

It was indeed a book, written in a dead language. 

On the two occasions that I was present at the court play, the 
company of the comic opera performed, on one night, the drama 
of La fete du village voisin, and a «* piece de cir Constance," where 
the King and the royal family were eulogised, till even they 
could hold out no longer. The King fell asleep in the midst of 
his own praises ; the ambassadors yawned without instructions; 
the duchesses winked their pretty eyes, until they could no 
longer contemplate their own greatness ; and a gentle doze oc- 
casionally seized the senses of all the French marchionesses, 
and English peeresses that surrounded me ; while the beaux in 
the pit no longer ogled the « sleeping beauties," in the boxes. 
Never did «« Nature's sweet restorer his ready visit pay, where 
fortune smiled," with a more importunate influence. The per- 
formance lasted many hours ; and, as it is against the etiquette 
of the court to applaud when the King is present, the opera, 
ballet, and piece de circonstance. all passed on in melancholy si- 
lence : an encore would have looked like treason, and a laugh 
been leze majeste. 

On the other night, the company of the Theatre Fran^ais gave 
the Adelaide de Guesclin, of Voltaire; a strange selection, consi- 
dering that the Duke of Wellington, the English ambassador, 
and half the house of lords were present. 



FRENCH THEATRE. 

" Je prdvois que bientdt cette guerre fatalc, 
Ces troubles intestines de la maison royale, 
Ces tnstes factions cederont au danger, 
D'abandonner la France au fils de l'e'tranger.'' 

Je vois que de V Anglais la race est peu ch&rie, 

Que leur joug est pe'sant ! qv'on rfaime pas leur palrie.' 



* N'acceptera, pour maitre 



L'ullie des Anglais, quelque grand qu'il puisse etre." 

" Je ne venx que l'Anglais en ces lie x, 
Protccteur insoient, commande sous mes yeu-x. 
Leg Anglais uvec moi pourraient mal s accorder, 
Jusqu'au dernier moment, je veux seul commander." 

[I foresee that soon this fatal war, these furious factions, and the intestine 
troubles of the royal house, must accelerate the crisis which will give up 
Fran, e to the son of the stranger. 

1 see that the English are but little liked, that their yoke is heavy ; and that 
their country is not esteemed- 

Accept not an alliance with England, however great she may be- 

I see nothing here but English — Insolent protector, commanding before my 
eyes. The English and I never can accord. To the last moment, I alone will 
be commander here]. 

Such were the sentiments of a play, selected for representation 
for the court, and at which so many of the heroes of Waterloo 
were present, but whose "joug" [yoke] it is most certain had 
become rather « pesant" [heavy] to those, for whom, as well as 
those, against whom, they had fought. 

############ 

The Theatres du Vaudeville, and des Varietes rank after the 
comic opera, and are most genuinely French. It is to Le Sage, 
the inimitable author of Gil Bias, that Franre owes the origin 
of La Comedie en Vaudeville, one of the most delightful of her 
amusements. 

Rousseau, in his musical dictionary, defines a Vaudeville to 
be ** Sorte de chanson a couplets, qui route ordinairement sur des 
sujets badins ou sahjriques" [a sort of song in couplets, which 
generally runs on some playful or satirical subject]. He adds 
that, though the air is little more than a recitative, to give ac- 
centuation to the words, and not always very musical, they are 
yet very piquant [smart] and spirited. 

The Vaudeville is exclusively French. It is said to be as an- 
cient as the time of Charlemagne, and every body in France 
seems to have ear enough to learn them, and voice enough to 
sing them. Of five hundred airs de Vaudeville, which I have 
brought over with me from France, I never mentioned one to a 
French person, that was not instantly hummed for me. To 
these well known and popular airs, new words are almost daily 



FRF.NCEI THEATRE. QJ 

composed, both for the petites pieces [after-pieces] of the thea- 
tres, and as the medium of political opinion, personal satire, or 
personal eulogium. The French have at ail times vented their 
spleen and their good humour in a song. Mazarin trembled 
when there were no Vaudevilles; and Menage observes, that 
t( Un recited de Vaudevilles est une piece des plus necessaires a tin 
historien, qui veut ecrire sincerement" [A collection of Vaude- 
villes is very necessary to a historian who wishes to write with 
truth.] 

All the actors and actresses on the smaller theatres of Paris 
sing tant bien que mat [either well or ill]; for all their pieces are 
operutiral, or rather a compilation of popular Vaudevilles, and 
short dialogues; and, going from one theatre to another, as is 
usual in Paris, I have not only found them singing the air I 
had just heard at the Vaudeville, repeated at the *« Varietes," 
but found the audiences of both spectacles delighted with their 
repetition, and humming them over, as I left the theatres, at 
the conclusion of the piece. 

If the Freneh have a national music, it is undoubtedly the 
Vaudeville, which is perfectly consonant to the genius of their 
language, and almost as epigrammatic. The pretty little pieces 
brought out at the Theatre du Vaudeville, are thickly sprinkled 
with madrigals, and epigrams, extremely ingenious and well 
turned, and admirably adapted to the popular airs for which 
they are composed, while the pure taste of Parisian criticism 
justly reprobates the eternal puns and jeux de mots [play upon 
words], which constitute the chief wit of their dramas. The 
Theatre du Vaudeville is rich in parodies, which follow rapidly 
upon every new piece given at the Opera, or at the Theatre Fran- 
cais. Their parody upon Hamlet is too ludicrous for descrip- 
tion, but irresistibly laughable; and the elegant light ballet of 
La Colombe Retrouvee [The Dove found again], I saw parodied 
at the Vaudeville, as « La Maison Retrouvee" [The House found 
again], with a breadth of faree quite beyond the genius of Sad- 
ler's Wells. Some of the acting here, particularly that of the 
men, is exquisite ; and the orchestra, like all the orchestras in 
Paris, is full and excellent. 

The Theatre des Varietes has obtained its present fashion, from 
the inimitable acting of Brunct and Poitier, notwithstanding its 
eternal puns and false conceits, infinitely less delicate and point- 
ed than those of the Vaudeville. The pieces usually given at the 
Varietes are what the French call <* pieces de caricature;" — hut 
which are, generally speaking, (at least those that we saw) not 
more broad than the usual cast of farces on the English stage. 
If fidelity to nature be the test of fine acting, whatever line of 
representation he assumed, Brunet is one of the finest actors I 

PART II. O 



gg FRENCH THEATRE. 

ever saw. It is not effort, it is not acting, it is nature itself, ill 
all its truth and simplicity. There is nothing like it tin the 
English stage ; Emery alone approaches Brunet. And if act- 
ing is not all conventional, all mannerism, this is the true ge- 
nius of acting. 

There may be a thousand readings and conceptions of trage- 
dy, according to the times and tastes of mankind ; but true ge- 
nuine comedy has always her standard of reference before her, 
in real life. By that she can be always tried, judged, and esti- 
mated ; and Garrick doubtlessly displayed more genius, when 
he succeeded in Scrub, than when he excelled in Richard. Co- 
medy is founded on the truth of nature, tragedy on her violation 
and extravagance, and it lias no infallible standard, by which it 
can he appreciated. — Voltaire observes that the French language, 
rich in terms burlesques et na'tves. est tres sterile, en termes nobles 
et harmonieux [burlesque and original, is barren in noble and 
harmonious expressions], and in their rhyming dictionaries 
twenty terms may be found suited to comic poetry, for one ap- 
plicable to a higher subject I should suppose that comedy is 

the true genius of the French drama, and that the French come- 
dians are the finest in the world. 

The Theatres des Boulevards, de la Porte Saint Martin, dc 
VJlmbigu Comique, de La Gaiete, and some of inferior notoriety, 
divide among them dramas, melo-dramas, pantomime, dancing, 
and petites pieces of exevy description. And, though it is a sort 
of ton for persons of fashion to go in large parties to these most 
amusing theatres, two or three times in a season, yet the audience, 
generally speaking, appeared to me to be extremely coarse, 
and so loud and vivacious in their disapprobation, or applause, 
and so curious and varied in their costume and appearance, as 
to form almost as entertaining a part of the spectacle, as the 
representations on the stage. 

One of the most fashionable melo-dramas, brought out at the 
Porte St. Martin, was Sampson, very literally taken from the 
Bible, except that, out of moral decency, the treacherous mis- 
tress was represented as a feeble wife, whose affection was over- 
ruled by the interests of her country, and the influence of her 
father. Notwithstanding, however, this purification, if any mo- 
ral could be insisted on from a melo-drama, it would not have 
been found in Sampson, which indeed formed a sort of dancing 
satire on this sacred text. The superior merit of physical force, 
the success of treachery, and the pleasures of vengeance, were 
all ably sustained and illustrated through this brilliant ballet d 9 ac- 
tion; but, like other human comments on holy writ, rather took 
from, than added to its edification. 

The tragedy of Joseph had been brought out some time before, 



FRENCH THEATRE. 99 

with great success aux Franqais. Voltaire had long recommend- 
ed tiiis sacred story, as being eminently dramatic, and equally 
rich in interest as the story of Phedra and Hippolytus, which it re- 
sembles. The acting of Mademoiselle Mars, in this tragedy, who 
rarelv plays out of her line ; and the able personification of Joseph, 
by La Fond, gave it a certain fashion for a certain time. But 
the French critics having declared that the story was tun familiar 
for the dignity of tragedy, thai, in their own words, "Madame 
Putiphar" was "ignoble autant que mechante" [contemptible as 
well as \\ irked], and Joseph, though *♦ un charmant garqon n'ctoit 
qiCun esclave" [though a charming youth, was nothing but a 
slave], the piece, all consecrated as it was, lost much of its eclat. 
Political interest also brought its share of censure, and the 
advice which Joseph gives to the Egyptian king, to profit by the 
famine of his subjects, to take possession of their property, and 
reduce them to slavery, was thought rather a dangerous hint to 
the imperial Pharaoh of the day, backed by an authority of such 
high influence. The Bible, while I was in France, supplied the 
" Sacrifice d' Abraham" to the Theatre de la Gaiete, and furnished 
M. Chateaubriand with his *< J\Io't'se" 

While the theatres thus abound in sacred dramas, they were, 
during my residence in Paris, the very focus of loyalty ; and, on 
the occasion of the Due de Berrfs marriage, Racine and Mo- 
liere, C orneille and Voltaire, were wholly laid aside, for those 
«« pieces de circonstance" which, all in praise of the royal family, 
are founded not only on historical facts in the history of the 
Bourbons, but on the bon mots, mots de cocur, and mots de 
sentiment [words from the heart, and words of sentiment] daily 
uttered, or composed for the king, princes, and princesses.. 
For-this illustrious family, whose intellectual splendors lay so 
long veiled amidst the shades of Hartwell, now blaze forth 
in all the brilliant scintillations of propos and impromptus; 
and, like FalstnAT, they appear not only eminently witty them- 
selves, but are the cause of wit in others. Those dramatists 
and poets, who, under the imperial regime, in praising the 
Emperor, were "not touched 9 but wrapt; 99 are now, under 
the influence of royalty, in praising the king, 

" Not awakened — but inspired" 

The King, however, who is a person of literary taste, and in 
the words of his eulogists, " passionne pour les lettres" [passion- 
ately fond of letters], must occasionally not only revolt from the 
matter, but the manner of his panegyrics, which do infiniteljr 
more credit to the loyalty of his eulogists, than to their talents. 
And, though it may make a part of his divine right, to hear the 



100 TRENCH THEATRE. 

inordinate, base flattery levied on his judgment with patient re- 
signation ; yet his legitimacy cannot always he proof against 
so. h a tiresome farrago of fulsome homage. For, as tbe Cheva- 
lier de Bouflers s.-.ys, with more levity than becomes the subject, 
« II n'y a que Dien, qui ait un assez grand fond de gaiete, pour 
ne pas s'e?inuyer de tons les hommages q\Con lui rend 9 * [There is 
only God who has a sufficient fund of gaiety, not to be wearied 
with all the homage that is paid to him]. 

0f these pieces de circonstance 9 I saw about twenty performed, 
all on the subject of royal virtue and royal wit, under different 
titles and fictions: — besides the thousand and one Henrys the 
Fourth, even incident of whose life was dramatised. There 
was ** Charles de France ;" — the " Chemin de Fontainebleau," 
« line journee d Versailles," " Tine Soiree aux Thuilleries ;" 
« Les Filles a marier ;" " La Pensee d'un bon Roi ;"— « Le Bon- 
heur d"un bon Roi ;" " Le Roi et la Ligue" «* Vimpromptu de 
Provence" [The road to Fontainbleau — A day at Versailles — 
An evening at the Thuilleries — The daughters to be married—* 
The thought of a good king — The happiness of a good king — > 
The King and the League — The extempore of Provence], and a 
hundred others of the *< self-same cast and mould." 

A little piece at the Vaudeville particularly amused me, by its 
loyal ingenuity. The characters were composed of flowers; the 
presiding deity was Flora, I expected, from the opening of the 
piece, that the author had dramatised the "Loves of the Plants" 
and when 1 saw the heroines of the Vaudeville appear upon the 
scene, as the modest snow-drop, pale primrose* bashful violet, play- 
ful tulip, and young carnation, with its blushing cheek, — 1 natu- 
rally expected that Zephyr, with his attendant aides-de-camp of 
fluttering gales, who « crowd the gaudy grove" would 

" Woo, and win their vegetable loves," 

and — 

"Love out their hour, and live in air," 

as I had seen them do a few nights before at the Opera. This 
piece de circonstance, however, represented not the loves, but the 
loyalty of the plants. It is needless to say, that the lily was par- 
ticularly distinguished by Flora, who crowns her as queen of the 
garden, and who relates to her odorous subjects, that having 
made a tour through the world, in search of virtue, — vegetable, 
animal, or moral, for she was not particular, she was returning 
to her native bowers, when accidentally passing by the gardens of 
the Thuilleries, she was attracted, not, as might be expected, by 
one of its beautiful parterres, but by the King in one of the win- 



FRENCH THEATRE. 1Q1 

dows, and she winds up her speech iu a solemn declamatory 
tone, with 

" Je cherchai la vertu — et je trouvai Louis." 
[I sought virtue — and I found Louis !] 

The flowers are all delighted at this rencontre, particularly the 
Uly, as making a part of the royal establishment; but their ex- 
pressions of joy are interrupted, by Flora observing, on a re- 
mote part of the stage, one of her fragrant train covered with a 
dark veil of 

" Purple and cobaltic blue-" 

She inquires who is that sulky flower that stands in a « morne 
silence" [sullen silence], pouting in the corner, and, after some 
delirate hesitation, the sister blossoms reply, that it is the guilty, 
proscribed, usurping violet, who alone, of all the flowers, had re- 
fused obedience to the *« crowned lily," in the absence of the god- 
dess. — The violet is instantly called into court, reprobated, and 
condemned ; but, as clemency is the order of the day, the violet is 
to be "amnestifie," and by this term I thought we should have 
seen her pretty head cut off. But her dark veil was only remov- 
ed, and she was permitted to take her place in the parterre of 
loyalty, which surrounded the goddess, and who all sung a finale, 
in praise of Flora, and Louis XVIII. 

Notwithstanding, however, that the loyalty of the audience 
seemed equal to any claims made on it, upon this occasion, the 
scene of the guilty violet, her condemnation, and reprieve, was 
a little too strong for the critical acumen of the parterre; and as 
in a piece expressly written in praise of the royal marriage, it 
would have been impossible to have cried « a la parte," or com- 
manded the dropping of the curtain, — a man in the pit evinced 
at once his loyalty, taste, and ingenuity, by jumping up and cry- 
ing out, "Mes amis, crions: vive le Roi!" [My friends call out: 
long live the king], and amidst shouts of laughter, clapping, and 
Vive le Roi! the piece was dismissed from the stage. The flow- 
ers drooped their fair heads, as if a sharp north-east wind had 
suddenly blasted their beauties, and the curtain dropped, but 
dropped only to rise again, for the representation of 

" La Pensee tfun bon Roi." 
[The thought of a good king-]. 

This Pensee d 9 un bon Roi, was, that the money usually laid out 
on fire-works, on the occasion of royal marriages, should now be 
expended in portioning a certain number of young girls in mar- 



103 



FRENCH THEATRE. 



riage ; and every verse in the finale, which consists of fifty, ends 
with — 



" Cest ainsi que pense le Roi" 
[Thus thinks the king]. 

A few nights before, the * finale of one of these occasional pieces 
had ended with the « mot sublime' 9 [sublime words] of the Due 
D'Angouleme, 

" Mon amiy fai la vue basse.'" 
[My friend, I am near-sighted]. 

and as bis royal highness was present, with glass to his eye, he 
seemed a personal comment on the text, and added considerably 
to its effect. Such is the miserable, tasteless, injudicious, and 
fulsome stuff, administered, as exciting draughts of loyalty, to 
the people of Paris, and which, purchased at stated prices from 
the hireling poetasters and scribblers of the day, disgrace their 
theatres, shame the public taste, and render those who praise, 
those who are praised, and those who applaud such praises, 
equally ludicrous in the eyes of all foreigners. 



FRANCE. 

BOOK VIII. 

Eminent and Literary Characters. 



■ On veut essayer de peindre a la posterity non les actions d'un seul homrae, mais l'es- 
prit des hommes dans le siecle le plus eclaire qui fut jamais." 

Steele de Louis XIV. 



Academies of France. — The Institut Imperial. — First sitting of the 
Jnstitut Royal. — Notices of Eminent and Literary Characters. — 
VAbbe Morellet. — Due de Brancas. — Suard. — Lally Toll-ended. 
> — La Fayette.— -Ginguene.' — >Gregoire. — Le Mercier.—Volney. — 
Segur. — Denon. — Due de Levis. — Chdteaubriant. — Pastoret. — 
A. Pastoret. — Pigault Le Brun — Picard. — Mesdames de Stael, 
— de Genlis, — de Sou&a,—~de Villette. — Conclusion. 

« qU 9 EST-CE que VAcademie Franqaise ?—a quoi sert-elle ?" 
[What is the French Academy. — of what use is it ?] This was a 
question often propounded, but never satisfactorily answered, 
even under the ancient regime. — The object of this body was, 
however, clearly analogous to that of the « Academie des belles 
lettres, 99 as defined by Mabillon, who laid it down that « L 9 occu- 
pation de I 9 Academie des belles lettres doit etre la gloire du Roi 99 [The 
occupation of the Academy of Belles Lettres ought to be the 
glory of the King.] 

It was in the same spirit, that the Academie Franqaise gave as 
a prize subject to its members, « Laquelle des vertus du Roi est 
la plus digne de I 9 admiration? 99 [Which of the King's virtues is 
most worthy of admiration?] When this programme was pre- 



104 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

sented to Louis XIII. he changed colour. The flattery of nearly 
fifty years had not prepared him for the disgusting homage of 
this servile body. 

The French Academy originated with the Cardinal de Riche- 
lieu, who made it an instrument of that system of despotism, the 
extension of which he pursued through every direct and indirect 
engine of influence or corruption. — A few men, of distinguished 
talents and independent principles, assembled at each others' 
houses, in the early part of the reign of Louis XIV. for the 
purpose of a free discussion of subjects of taste, literature, and 
philosophy. — There was a taint of liberty in this little knot of 
Literati, thus congregating without patent or ordinance from the 
government, that alarmed the cardinal-minister; and those, whom 
lie could not punish, he resolved to degrade, by forcing on them 
his protection, and converting their voluntary communion into a 
corporate and authorised body. From the ruin of this small, 
but free society, arose the stupendous and pretending edifice of 
the Jlcademie Franqaise. Confined, restricted, and debased by 
its institution, v became a mere theatre of exhibition, a Grotto 
del Cane to aspiring genius, stifling its breathings, corrupting 
the source of its existence, enfeebling the main-springs of its 
energy, and compensating its degradation, by one of those 
fulsome eloges, which came too late to repay the sacrifices made 
to obtain it.* 

Tlie first object of the French academy seems to have been, to 
oppose and crush the aspiration of superior and original genius; 
and when royal authority did not interfere to favour the election 
of those, who with talents of higher direction, devoted their 
powers to flattery and adulation, the first men in France both for 
ability and celebrity were passed over and neglected. Racine 
had written most of his finest tragedies, and Boilcau his best 
satires, when they were proposed, and rejected by the Academy. 
It was the « je le vcux" [it is my will] of the king, that, like a 
lettre de cachet, obtained the admission of these two geniuses into 
this state prison of intellect and ability ; whose members bowed 
to the regal fiat, and accorded to power, what they had refused 
to merit 

Moliere never was admitted to the honour of thvfauteuil [arm- 
chair]. Dufresny and Le Sage never sought the distinction. La 

* In this school of flattery and servility, all were panegyrised with indiscri- 
minate admiration. Every man was eulogised in his presence by another, 
whom he had himself just eulogised according to statute; and while thus 

" One was be-Roscius'd, the other be-praised," 

the public, who were always called in to assist at these ludicrous solemnities 
<->f bad taste and vanity, laughed at both. 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 105 

Fontaine was nearly seventy, when It is name was reluctantly 
admitted among the " quarante" [forty], who were said to have 
had « V esprit comme quatre" [wit enough for four]. Corneille 
first learned the existence of this body, by their outcry against 
his tragedies! and he then wittily exclaimed : « JHmite I'un des 
mes trois Horaces ; fen appelle an peuple" [I will imitate one of 
my three tloratii ; I will appeal to the people]. The appeal was 
admitted ; and the French people, at all times, have crowned 
him their poet.-^-The gates of the Academy were closed against 
Montesquieu, by roijal authority : and he forfeited his indepen- 
dence, and he denied his own words, to obtain an indispensible, 
but degrading dignity, which he had so ably ridiculed in his 
« Persian letters, 9 ' 

Voltaire satirised the Academy through the whole of a corres- 
pondence of fifty years ; and when after almost as many years* 
unavailing struggle, he was at last received, he found this lumi- 
nous body wholly incapableof managing the interestsofhis *<cheres 
vingt-quatre lettres de V alphabet ;" [his dear twenty-four letters 
of the alphabet] which he at last took out of their hands; and 
began himself the reform of their dictionary, their great work; 
the monument of their insufficiency, their indolence, and medio- 
crity. 

The academy was to D'Alembert another Mademoiselle de 
TEspinasse. In his connexion with either, there was not a trace 
of energy of character, or of mental manhood. — All was feeble- 
ness and subjection. He carried the love letters of the one to his 
rivals, and he seconded the tyranny of the other in his discourses; 
and when, after talking of the « chains" of the Academy, he aban- 
doned his independence for its fauteuil [arm-chair], he proved that 
the genius of calculation, if among the most useful was not ne- 
cessarily among the most elevated of human endowments. 

Voltaire reproarhed the geometrician with suffering his am- 
bition de lui couper les ailes [to clip his wings]. It was, p vU ps, 
to preserve their wings undipped, that Helvetius, Rousseau, 
Diderot, Raynal, and many other distinguished men, who 
flourished immediately before the revolution, refused to seek, 
and never obtained admission into the French Academy. The 
venerable Abbe St. Pierre, the single and solitary patriot ad- 
mitted into their servile band, was expelled, on the alleged crimp, 
of having judged the reign of Louis XIV. by principles of justice, 
of reason, and of truth. 

While the Academy was the subject of contempt and ridicule 
to men of genius ; it still remained in general the object of their 
ambition, — and it thus presents one of the many solecisms, which 
arise out of the incongruity of political institutions with the state 
of national illumination. 

PART ii. p 



1 06 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

Opinion becomes easily perverted, undef despotism, and fa- 
shion will always hold a predominant authority, in proportion as 
principles are unknown. — Prejudices, thus nurtured by political 
power, rendered it indispensible to the gens-de-lettres [men of 
lettres] of France to obtain a fauteuil in the Academy ; because 
it was ♦< ttn-teat," a term almost untranslatable in the language 
of a free country ; a term, which in royal France was the in- 
dispensible passport to all the suffrages of society. As citizen- 
ship did not then exist, brotherhood was substituted ; and corpo- 
rate bodies were multiplied, because there was no public, and 
no people. 

The gens-de4ettres of France, from the commencement of the 
reign of Louis XIV. were marked with a seal of degrada- 
tion, whose impress is not even yet effaced. To live in sordid 
and servile dependance on the great; to niche themselves into 
an entresol [a little room between two floors], in some noble 
hotel; to make the charm of the society of their patron or 
patroness ; to be always ready with their « vers de circonstance 9 
and impromptus a loisir" [occasional verses, and impromptus at 
leisure], and, like the Academy in its corporate capacity, to 
make compliments and eloges to kings, queens, princes, prin- 
cesses, cardinals, and ministers, seemed to be their general 
mode and means of existence. A curious summary of the mean- 
ness of genius, thus degraded by institutions, might easily be 
drawn up, and some of the brightest names in French literature 
might be quoted, as illustrations.— ^Segrais was turned out of 
the service of Mademois lie de Montpensier, because he ven- 
tured to advise his patroness, on the subject of her ludicrous 
passion for de Lauzun; and on that occasion was taken into the 
bouse of Mad i me la Fayette, on the proviso of his ushering her 
insipid novel of *« Zayde" into the world, under his already cele- 
brated name, and of giving it up to the authoress, when expe- 
rience should have determined its success. 

The same want of independence is marked in the groups of 
literati, who combined their whole genius to produce their "guir- 
landesde Julie'' 9 [garlands of Julia], in return for the dinners and 
protection of the hotel de Rambouillet ; in Boileau, the stern 
censor of France, but unwearied adulator of its sovereign ; in 
Racine, writing for a court, and dying of a broken heart, because 
the King frowned upon the first truth he had ventured to utter ;* 

• Racine, pressed by Madame de Maintenon to give his opinion on the 
cause of the miseries and discontents of the people, was weak enough, on a 
solemn vow of secrecy, to draw up a statement for her private perusal, which 
exposed the errors of government, as the cause of the public distresses. — Ma- 
dame de Maintenon betrayed him to the King, and the royal displeasure had 
such an effect on the frame and feelings of the nervoui and susceptible poet, 



EMINENT LITERARY CHARACTERS. ^(W 

and in the whole brilliant corps of talent, taste, and philosophy 
of Louis XVtVs day, prostrate at the feet of a minister or a 
mistress, deprecating the frowns of a De Choiseul or a D'Au- 
mont, canvassing the smiles of a Pompadour, or a Du Barry, 
sent by a glance from the presence of a haughty Tenrin, or of 
an ennuyee Du DefFand, and silenced, in all the effervescence of 
wit, spirit, and conversation, by the frigid " voild qui est Men" 
[that is very well], of the little minded Mad. de Geoffrin. — 
l£ven Voltaire could panegyrise the vices of a Duke de Riche- 
lieu ; and Rousseau, who talked so much of liberty, never knew 
the blessings of independence.* 

Poets have, in all times and regions, (with an exception in 
favour of a few modern British poets,f) been the parasites of 
courts $ and tyranny has sedulously sought and recompensed 
those suffrages, which tended to throw a brilliant halo over its 
crimes, and to palliate or excuse its errors to posterity. — Too 
many of the poets and gens de lettres [people of letters] of France, 
from the reign of Louis XIV., became the privileged Swiss of 
literature, ready 



" To fight for any King, or any God," 



who ruled the hour. Their effusions, when released from the 
dictation of interest, were still inspired by sentiments purely 
personal ; and general principles and public spirit were alike 
neglected and unknown. 

While the Academie Franqaise owed its origin to the Cardi- 
nal de Richelieu, Madame de Montespan, who had dictated the 
history of Louis XIV. to Boileau and Racine, suggested the idea 
of the Jicademie des inscriptions et belles lettres, charged with the 
task of enternising the glory of the king, in a series of medals; 
and of judging the paintings, monuments, and sculptures, con- 
secrated to the same service. The ancient academies of France, 
in all six in number, were suppressed by a decree of the Na- 
tional Convention, 1793, and replaced by the National Insti- 
tute. 

that it is thought to have preyed on his health, and produced his death. — For 
an account of this transaction, see Madame de JWaintenon, peinte par elle mime 
[Madame de Maintenon, painted by herself]. 

* Rousseau lived alternate ly in dependence on the bounty and generosity of 
Mesdames de Warens, d'Epinay, and de Luxembourg. To these three ladies 
he was tinder such serious and solemn obligations, as a noble mind would 
have disdained to contract. 

f High, among: these distinguished few, stands my own eminent country- 
man, Thomas Moore, Esq. beyond all doubt the finest lyric poet of the age, 
and the true genuine bard of a land, once celebrated for " her song of other 
times," whose wrongs have been so often his inspiration, and whose sufferings 
so frequently his theme. 



|Qg EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

The Institute, which combined all the faculties of the preced- 
ing academies, was projected by those members of the Conven- 
tion most distinguished for their abilities, and their devotion to 
the real interests of their country. They felt the strong neces- 
sity for concentrating the various talents of the nation into one 
great focus, and of thus bringing the several arts to bear reci- 
procally upon each other. The Institute was, at its formation, 
divided into three classes, and these again subdivided into fifteen 
sections. The three great divisions embraced the belles lettres, 
the natural sciences, and moral and political economy ; the last 
a class hitherto overlooked, although of all sciences the most 
influential on human happiness, the most necessary to good go- 
vernment, and as yet the most imperfectly cultivated. This ar- 
rangement of the Institute, although somewhat imperfect, was 
still essentially good ; and it might have, readily accommodated 
itself to such changes, as experience would have indicated. But 
when, under the reign of Napoleon, the lnstitut National became 
VInstitut Imperial, it was totally re-modelled ; and instead of 
three, was divided into four classes: — that of physical and ma- 
thematical sciences; — of French literature; — of history and 
ancient languages; — and of the fine arts. Thus, the whole 
of the moral sciences, political economy, statistics, moral philo- 
sophy, &c. &c. were discarded from its precincts as anarchical, 
democrafical, and innovating, and as utterly subversive of 
« sound learning and religious education." These enquiries, 
tolerated only under the freest governments, have ever been 
regarded with jealousy by those who hold, and seek to tighten, 
the reins of power. Their tendency is to rescue the authority 
of the minister from the caprice of the man; and contemplating 
the happiness of millions, they will never be cordially cherished, 
while personality and intrigue environ the throne, and substi- 
tute the interests of an oligarchy for the prosperity of nations. 
On the return of the Bourbon dynasty, the Institute, already 
sufficiently under the controul of authority, was destined to un- 
dergo a still further degradation, in the expulsion of some of its 
most valuable members; and in the erasure, from its catalogue, 
of names already belonging to history, and consecrated to im- 
mortality. 

The first public meeting of all the classes of the "lnstitut 
Royal de France" which had occurred since the banishmetit of 
some of its most illustrious members; of Carnot, Monge, Gre- 
goire, &c. &c. &c. was fixed to take place on the 24th of April, 
1816. So much was said, so much was expected, of this sitting 
of the Institute, that interest was made for tickets of admission, 
with all the solicitude, eagernes, and anxiety, which I had after- 
wards seen exhibited for the court entertainments, or the royal 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARAGTERS. 109 

trousseau. The men and women were alike desirous to be pre- 
sent ; " discourse and « lectures," had quite as much attraction, 
as cachemirs, and embroidered pocket handkerchiefs. 

We were so fortunate as to have tickets ; and, though we 
repaired to the « College des Quatre Nations" an hour before the 
time of opening the sittings, we found all the avenues thronged 
by an impatient multitude, who had quitted their carriages ; and 
we owed our easy admission entirely to the kindness of Mon- 
sieur La Fonde de La Dsbat,* who brought us in by a private 
door, as we did the excellent seats we occupied in the Hall of 
Sitting, to the politeness of the venerable M. Suard, the Secre- 
taire perpetuel of the Jlcademie Franqaise. The beautiful chapel 
of the qiiatre Nations was already filled when we took our 
places, exactly in front of the great tribunal, where, under dra- 
peries of green velvet and silver, the bust of the King, and em- 
broidered garlands of the victorious lily, sat, as President, the 
Duke de Richelieu ; le Comte de Vaublanc, then Minister of the 
Interior ; the Vice President de Comte de Fontanes, and the 
Secretaire perpetuel, M. Suard. 

In a Semi-circle on either side, formed round an area in the 
centre, sat the members of the Institute, the representatives of 
the four Academies. Behind these distinguished persons, and 
in the centre galleries, rose an amphitheatre of female beauty 
and fashion, mingled with the curious and the learned of the 
other sex. Wigs and flowers, spectacles and opera-glas- 
ses, thoughtful brows and coquettish smiles, were all closely al- 
lied in the cause of literature and science, and the Institut royal de 
France. Above this variegated parterre, (capable of confound- 
ing the brain of learning, and of producing abstractions, not all 
philosophical) appeared several distinguished groups niched in 
the loges, or boxes of this splendid theatre. Guards occupied 
the vestibules, and appeared at every door,-— and even within 
the hallowed precincts of science and philosophy, amidst the 
benches where beauty reclined, and learning meditated, appear- 
ed the appalling forms of armed soldiers; their bright bayonets 
glittering amidst feathers and flowers, aadlgleaming between the 
marble busts of departed genius, — while statesmen, presiding at 
the shrine of philosophy, preached the blessings of peace, and 
vaunted the security of a reign, so favourable to its existence. 

This incongruous melange [medley] of ladies and sages, of 
gallantry and learning, of the frippery of dress and of literature, 
with an armed power filling up the back of the scene, and instru- 
ments of force gleaming amidst the roses of fashion, and lilies of 

* This gentleman, who was among the number of the dtportcs ci Cayenne 
[transported to Cayenne], is no less distinguished by his amiable manners, 
than by his high talents. 






±IQ EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

loyalty, presented to my imagination a picture at once rare and 
curious. It was a singular, 1 might almost say an agitating 
coup-deceit/ It was a representation ot the far-famed sittings of 
the ancient Academy of France, of which I had read so much* 
and so long. It was an assemblage of nearly all that France at 
that moment possessed of eminence in talent or genius, acquire- 
ment or celebrity, of statesmen, philosophers, naturalists, poets, 
or artists. It was also my first observation of a great congre- 
gated French auditory of both sexes; bringing to the scene of 
action all the zeal, enthusiasm, prejudice and pretension of the 
day, and of the nation. 

It was impossible to confound the members of the Institute 
With the rest of the congregation ; for they all sat together, and 
were all dressed in a green uniform; and, in their embroidered 
suits and point ruffles, they appeared as ready for the levee of a 
prince or a minister, as for the temple of Minerva. The sword, 
which once in France armed the sacred hands of faith, was now 
attached to the side of peaceful philosophy ; and Cuvier preach- 
ed the efficacy of steam, and de Choiseuil Gouffier read a Me- 
•moire on Homer, armed in the defence of their subjects, like chi- 
valrous knights, about to combat the "chimeras dire" of their 
own fanciful creation. Thus in France men of science, like men 
of fashion, I'homme de lettres and Vhomme comme ilfaut [the man 
of letters, and the man of fashion], are ail obliged to " represen- 
ter noblement" [make a handsome appea ranee] ; and talent in a 
plain coat, upon public occasions, would cut but a poor figure in 
company with so much embroidered genius. 

The black Brutus heads of many of this learned body, formed 
a singular contrast with their very fine and very studied dresses; 
and, from my first view of this assembly, I was struck by a 
mould and physiognomy to me new and singular. All seemed 
picturesque or grotesque; I never saw so many fine formed 
heads, so many marked and intelligent countenances ; few were 
handsome, but the features of all were strongly chiselled, spirit- 
ed, and animated. There was a sort of general personification 
of mind, extremely impressive to the stanger's eye ; and, on 
this occasion, one might almost say, "the body thought." To me, 
however, all were strangers, for I was only a few days arrived 
in Paris; and I was indebted to a gentleman Avho sat near me 
for the names, and, occasionally, for some little biographical 
anecdotes of the various distinguished persons ranged before me. 
He was a middle-aged man, of a keen sarcastic countenance, and 
a manner full of caustic pleasantry. He seemed amused by the 
strong impression made on me by a scene, so calculated to inte- 
rest, and volunteered his services With an air, that convinced me 
he consulted his own amusement as much as mine. I did not, 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. m 

however, suffer the privilege of asking questions to be idle, and 
took the first person on the first row of the academical benches, 
as the object of my inquiry. The countenance of this person 
was calm and still, as sleeping infancy ; his folded hands, and 
closing eyes, seemed not to belong to the place he occupied. 
" Cependant," (said my Cicerone, in reply to an observation of 
this cast,) « c'est M. Talleyrand, mais jamais visage ne jut moins 
barometre ! /" [H ,wever, it is Mr. de Talleyrand, but never face 
was less of a barometer]. 

I pointed to another, — " Oh, pour celui-ld; c'est le comte de 
Fontanes; toujour s grand partisan de ce qui existe" [Oh, as to 
him; he is the count de Fontanes; always a great partisan of 
what exists at the moment]. 

I asked the name of a third : — after some hesitation he re- 
plied, « C'est, je crois, Baour Lormain — homme et poete de circon- 
stance habile a prevoir le jour d'unefete imperiale, ou un anniver- 
saire royal" [tie, I believe, is Baour Lormian — the man and the 
poet of circumstance, clever at foreseeing the day of an imperial 
fete, or of a royal anniversary]. 

I was extremely curious to know the name of a person who, 
like the witches in Macbeth, seemed 

-Not to belong to Earth, 



But yet was of it."- 

Seated above the academicians, and distinguished by a dress 
of blue and silver, covered (as I thought) with imperial bees, but 
which proved, however, to be royal lilies; more remarkable stili 
by an air of picturesque abstraction, and, though the flattered 
object of many a lady's eye-glass, apparently self-wrapt and un- 
attending. — " Ah !" said my informant, brightening up, « that 
is indeed a notable person ; the last of the « antiques croises 9 and 
noble pilgrims of Europe ; the solitary and unrivalled successor 
of the de Coucys, de Nesles, de Chatillons, and de Montforts. 
After having made the tour of the Mediterranean, and visited 
Sparta, and Rhodes, and Jerusalem ; Alexandria, and Cairo, 
and Carthage, and Cordova, and Grenada, and Madrid ; and 
finally saluted the Ebro, he returned to his own country, bring- 
ing with him trophies of his piety, and testimonies of that use- 
ful spirit of research, which leads men to visit other nations, in 
order that they may enrich, enlighten, and benefit their own. 
To use his own words, he returned with a dozen of pebbles of 
Sparta, Argos, and Corinth; a chaplet; a little bottle of the 
waters of Jordan ; a phial of the waters of the dead sea ; and a 
few reeds gathered on the banks of the Nile ! !" 

In addition to these treasures, which will doubtless form a new 
class in the Museums of France, he has himself told us « Je 






Hg EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

tacherai d'elever en silence un monument a ma patrie" [I am 
working in silence at raising a monument to my country]. He 
is now, most likely, working at this edifice, which it is thought, 
will take the forms of political science; for the philosopher of the 
desert, it is supposed, is now ambitious to be the philosopher of 
the Thuilleries. By this description I recognised M. Chaute- 
briand, whose " Itineraire" J had just finished. 

My informant then pointed out to my observation, in rapid 
and interesting succession, Bertholet, Choiseul-Gouffier, Cuvier, 
Denon, Onmboldt, Gerard, La Place, Lanjuinais, Langles, Le 
Mercier, Pastoret, Pinel, Picard, Etienne, Prony, Segur, Sicard, 
La Cretelle, GeofFry, and many other distinguished persons, with 
whose names or works I had long been acquainted. 

The opening of the Seance closed at once my list of questions, 
and his very amusing replies. I held in my hand the « ordre des 
lectures;" and, though acquainted with the subjects which were 
to be discussed, 1 found it extremely difficult to follow the speak- 
ers, or rather the readers; — the same unmarked enunciation, 
monotonous equality, and psalmodising accent, as had disgusted 
me in some of the inferior actors of the Theatre Francois, dis- 
tinguished the public recitations of the Institute. Not an inflex- 
ion of voice, not a single variety of intonation,* — all was nasal 
and unemphatic, and comparable only to the drone of an untu- 
nable bagpipe. His Excellency, the Comtc de Vaublanc, 
opened the sitting, by a discours, which was the genuine oration 
of a minister of state, proving that, ** whatever is, is right," and 
that the present happy position of France is the most favoura- 
ble to the cultivation of arts, learning, and science. 

He was answered by the Due de Richelieu, as president of the 
sitting, in the same tone and tendency. On the subject of this 
reply, there is little to be said ; but 1 could not help observing, 
that the Due de Richelieu has prevented his celebrated grand- 
father from being the last grand Seigneur Fran^ais; for high 
blood and high birth were never more finely represented, than in 
the fine countenance, the noble aspect, and distinguished air of 
the present respresentative of that illustrious house. The Due 
de Richelieu is, indeed, the very personification of nobility. 

The Comte de Fontanes, as vice-president, pronounced a dis- 
course on the solemnity ; which was followed by a Memoire upon 
Homer, by the Comte de Choiseul-Gouffier, president of the 
Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres. The name of this 
eminent and interesting person was alone sufficient, to command 
my profound and undivided attention to whatever he should ut- 
ter. The author of the delightful Travels in Greece and Asia, 
made for the benefit of science and of art, calculated t»i amuse the 
lightest, and to instruct the gravest, the able ambassador of the 



EMINENT AND LITEltM* Y CHARACTERS. 113 

Porte, who turned a place, usually accepted a=> ^ ne p Sor( ]jd 
profit, to the purposes of knowledge and illumination, t*. , io 
Choiseul is also eminently respectable by his adherence to the 
family of the Bourbons, from principle and sentiment : when in- 
ter est and ambition might have pointed out to him a more cer- 
tain path to wealth and honours. 

The discours on Homer, a subject by no means pregnant with 
novelty, was followed by « Reflexions sur la Marche actuelle des 
Sciences, et sur leurs Rapports avecla Societe" [Reflections on the 
actual progress of the sciences, and their relations with society], 
pr mounced with an unusual degree of vivacity b\ Cuvier. This 
luminous and able discourse was irradiated with brilliant points, 
and delivered with great animation. The ladies, by far the 
most audible part of the assembly, in their manifestations of ap- 
probation, applauded almost every word — ** C'est charmant! — 
" Cest beau- 9 [It is charming, — It is fine], — with repeated «« bra- 
tos," followed every sentence; and when M. Cuvier observed 
of steam, in iris ardent eulogium on its qualities, that it had one 
superiority over the human mind itself; — namely, that it was 
not « susceptible ni de fatigue ni de distraction" [not susceptible 
either of fatigue or of absence], a hundred pretty lips were heard 
to echo « Ah! que c'est juste, et Jin et ingenicux !" [Ah ! how 
just, how fine, how ingenious] and one lady, observing that I 
admired the energy of enunciation of this great naturalist, re- 
marked to me, " Madame, voild comme on park dans votre chain- 
bre des communes? N'est ce pas /" [Madame, it is in that man- 
ner they speak in your douse of Commons ! Is it not ?] 

A short time after this my first view of M. Cuvier, I had the 
pleasure of joining his Saturday-evening circle, at his own house 
in the Jardin des Plantes [Garden of Plants], — and I confess, I 
admired the amiable man in the bosom of a charming happy fa- 
mily, all smiling round him, as much as 1 had done the cele- 
brated philosopher, in the public sittings of the Institute. 

M. Cuvier gave place to M. Quatremere de Quiney, perpetu- 
al secretary of the class des beaux arts [fine arts], who pronoun- 
ced a discourse on the monuments of art, « dus d la Restaura- 
tion! 1 !" [fruits of the Restoration] and the sitting was termi- 
nated by a poetical epistle from the late M. Ducis, the transla- 
tor of Shakspeare, to the Chevalier de Boufflers, and read by 
Mons. Campenon, member of the classe des belles lettres. 

Something wearied by the discordant and declamatory tones 
I had so long listened to, and not particularly edified or enter- 
tained by the subjects or compositions of the various discourses, 
I felt both my ear and spirits relieved by the breaking up of the 
Institute, which upon the whole gave me an impression little 
favourable to incorporated bodies of learning, or confraternities 

PART II. q 



114/ 

of taste. 



EMINENT AND LITfiftARY CHARACTERS. 



Such skiffles, more adapted, perhaps, to the subtlety 
id v»~ ; V ot naediocrit) and pretension, may present an object 
and give a direction to inferior ability. But Homer and Ossian, 
and Milton and Shakspeare, were of no Academy ; and Aris- 
totle, who gave rules to others, received the principles of his 
own from nature only. Learned academies and literary re- 
views belong, perhaps, to the decline of national literature. — 
They are at least never found existing in its infancy, rarely in 
its prime* Engines to prejudice public taste, or to bias its 
judgment, they may give currency to second rate talent, or afford 
temporary opposition to superior genius; — but their fiats be- 
longing to their own day, and governed by its passions may 
amuse, but will scarcely influence posterity. The •« one Milton" 
will still reach the immortality which nature meant to be his 
birth-right ; when the name of his critical reviewer, now rescued 
from obscurity by the ridicule attached to it, shall be forgotten, 
even with that < laim to preservation. 

While the Institute thus presented a sort of bird 9 £-eye view of 
the talent of France, it did not concentrate all that was estima- 
ble in its genius and its worth ; and I counted it among the 
proudest privileges enjoyed during my residence in that country, 
that I was occasionally permitted to behold those, on whom the 
world's eye had been so long fixed, but who had now withdrawn 
in weariness or indignation, in sorrow or infirmity from its 
gaze. Too often, however, this valuable privilege was over- 
shadowed by sadness ; too often the hope it held forth was frus- 
trated, by the prerariousness of malady, or the suddenness of 
dissolution. Chenier, De Lille, Le Brun, Bouffiers, Ducis, St. 
Pierre, had but recently paid the debt of nature, when I arrived 
in France; and she too, whose name is never there pronounced 
but with eyes that glisten, and tones that melt, the sublime, the 
tender Madame Cottin, with her true woman's genius, was 
likewise no more; and where 1 sought for traces of her life, 
I found but the history of her virtues.f 

Of that brilliant constellation of genius and philosophy, which 
shed a lustre upon the reign of Louis XV., a few even still lin- 
ger on the horizon of literature. The Abbe Morillet, the doyen 

* These observations do not extend to scientific academies, but are hazard- 
ed, as applying exclusively to arts, governed in their own nature by taste and 
opinion- 

■J- Madame Cottin was one of the most popular writers in France. She united 
all suffrages in her favour; and the modest simplicity and blameless excel- 
lence of her life have contributed grea ly o her popularity Without beauty, 
almost without those graces which supply its place, Madame de Cottin in- 
spired two ardem and fatal passions, which ceased only with the lives of her 
lovers. Her young kinsman, Monsieur D***, shot himself in her garden ; his 
unsuccessful and sex penary rival, Monsieur **** poisoned himself, ashamed, 
it is said, of a passion equally hopeless and unbecoming his years. 






EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. aft 

de la literature [the senior of literature], still lives, (at least I 
hope lie li\es) maintaining to the last something of that ethereal 
glow, which Marmontel describes as brightening every sphere 
in which he shone. 1 was honoured In an invitation and most 
kind message, through his excellent and amiable niece, a true 
•Antigone, saving, that the moment he was able to sit up in his 
bed, he would be glad to rer eive me : for it is long since even 
that privilege had been granted him, by age and infirmity. — To 
find the Abbe Morillet still living, was to me a subject of. plea- 
surable astonishment. The friend of Voltaire, of Rousseau, 
Diderot, and Marmontel, whose name is to be found in every 
page of the history of the last sixty years of the French lite- 
rature I 

Marmontel* compares the humour of the Abbe Morillet to that 
of Srtiff, who, he observes, alone surpassed him in les tours de 
plaisanterie Jinement ironiques [turns of wit finely ironical]. •• II 
se monlrait" says Marmontel, *< a nos diners avec nne dine on- 
verte et ferme, et dans le cceur autant de justice que dans I 9 esprit" 
[He showed himself at our dinners with a soul open and firm, 
and a heart as correct as his mind]. To this charming charac- 
ter he adds, that his conversation was une source d'iaees saines, 
pures, profondes quu sans jamais tarir, ne dsbordoit jamais*'' [a 
spring of ideas salutary, pure and deep, which was never ex- 
hausted and never overflowed]. — Toe Abbe Morillet was the 
intimate friend of Diderot ; and when the 1 arte/ was attacked 
by Palissot, in his comedy of « Les Philosophcs" — Morillet be- 
came the champion of the god of hi*! idolatry, in a little work 
called <• the Vision" It was in this work, that some lines, of- 
fensive to Madame de Robeck, the protectress of Palissot, caused 
a lettre de cachet to be issued against the Abbe, who for an idle 
pleasantry Was thrown into the Bastille; and his imprisonment 
would have terminated in banishment, but for the timely inter- 
cession of Madame La Duchesse de Luxembourg, who, at the 
instigation of Rousseau, went in person to Versailles to solicit 
the minister St. Florenttn ; and finally obtained the release of 
the captive, whose imprisonment and emancipation were equal- 
ly the result of undue influence, strongly characteristic of the 
times. 

The Abbe Morillet, the dear friend of Diderot, who had nearly 
lost his reason in the donjon of Vincennes; — of Marmontel, who 
had been thrown into the Bastille for reciting a humourous sa- 
tire ; — of Rousseau, banished for the novelty of his paradoxes; 
— of Voltaire, to whom, the night before his death, the court sent 

* Marmontel was married to a niece of the Abbe" Morillet, whose charms 
and virtues he has celebrated in his own delightful Mtmrires 



HQ EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

a lettre de cachet, and the parliament a writ of prise de corps, 
himself. the victim of the abuse of power, delegated to so many 
corrupt hands ; — the Abbe Morillet was naturally led to favour 
a revolution, which promised the annihilation of evils so fatal 
to the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind. He was among 
its early and strenuous advocates; and had previously distin- 
guished himself among the economists of the ministry of Tor- 
got. His <* Manuel des Inquisiteurs" — «• Mcmoires contre la 
Compagnie des hides;" — bis •* Traite des D Slices et des Peines" 
[Manual of Inquisitors — Memoirs against the India Company— 
his Treatise on Pleasure and Pains], and his writings on public 
economy, and general theories of commerce, &c. &c. obtained 
his reception into the Academie Franqaise, in the place of PAbbe 
MiM.* 

A short time before I arrived in Paris, at the advanced age of 
ninety, Up had fractured a limb, which had increased his general 
infirmities, and confined him perpetually to his bed. But he 
talked of recovery, — receiving visits, — at times exhibited his 
faculties in full force, — and still emitted some of those sparks 
of Rabelaisian humour, attributed to him by cotemporary wits. 
But he never rose from his pillow during my residence at Pa- 
ris, and when I left it, he was, I understood, at the last extre- 
mity. 

The once gay, gallant, eccentric Due de Brancas assured me, 
through the medium of his friend and physician, the excellent 
and ingenious Doctor Montcgre, that if 1 would venture to see a 
cross old man, as soon as his health would permit, he would be 
happy to receive me. 

In a ♦< cross old man" verging on eighty, it is difficult to rc- 
cal the brilliant, witty, eccentric Comte de Lauraguais; the 
lover of Sophie Arnoult,f the author of a Memoire, interesting 
by the pleasantry, humour, and wit, of its compositions, if not 
by its subject ; and once among the leaders of those in France 
who, to the fear and horror of the court of Versailles, first be- 
came infected with the disease then called the Anglomanie. The 
Due de Brancas was among the earliest and most passionate ad- 
mirers of the government of England, where he resided in 1773, 
and brought back to France those principles, in favour of a 
free constitution, which, for twenty years before the Revolution, 

* The Abbe" Morillet was among the veterans of literature, whom Buona- 
parte liberally pensioned. A short time before 1 left Paris, it was understood 
lhat the kin}? also had granted him an annuity. 

f The Due de Brancas demanded of his physicians, whether ennui could 
kill? being answered " lhat it -was possible" he nnmediately flew to Sophie 
Arnoult, .mil urged her to commence . suit against the Prince D'Henin, who 
was at that time wearying her with his addresses. 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. ±ij 

were universally received and discussed among the thinking part 
of a nation, to whom they were only known as Utopian theo- 
ries. 

When the Due de Brancas (then Comte de Lauragais,) first 
appeared at court, after his return from England, Louis XVI. 
asked in an ironical tone, « what he had learned there ?" 

A penser. Sire" [To think, Sire!] replied the Duke bowing; 
■— " a panser les chevaux" [to look after horses!] replied the 
King disdainfully, and turned on Ins heel. 

I believe Maupertuis has observed that, " le corps hnmain est 
un fruit qui est vcrtjusque d la vicillesse; le moment de la mort est 
la maturite" [the human body is a fruit which is green till old 
age ; the moment of death is its maturity]. This curious hy- 
pothesis seems strictly applicable to the French temperament. 
Time rather mellows than withers its powers, and the last 
hours of life are neither the most feeble, nor the least precious 
of prolonged existence. With a constitution greatly impaired, 
and almost a confirmed valetudinarian, the Duke de Brancas 
still retains great brilliancy and force of mind ; and, after hav- 
ing run the rounds of pleasure, politics and literature, he is 
involved, in the decline of life, in studies adapted to the 
vigour, it may be almost said, the illusions of its dawn. 
Engaged in metaphysical pursuits, and studies of the most 
profound abstraction, the once gay, gallant de Lauragais, the 
votary of the graces, is found surrounded by volumes of philoso- 
phy and metaphysics, still giving his decided preference to every 
thing that is English ; the works of our best metaphysicians are 
his constant study and delight; and Lot ke, Priestly, and Stuart 
are now usurping the place of the «* Gentil Bernard," « Des Muses 
Qallantes" and the Memoires, and light literature, which once 
formed the library of a frenchman of rank and fashion. 

«M? Al* At* Atr 46* 4-'-* At* At* Air »4Er 

w Parmi mes connoissances" says Marmontel, « il y avoit a 
Paris unjeune homme, appelle Suard, d'un esprit Jin, delie, juste 9 
et sage ; d'un caractere aimable* d'un commerce doux et liant ; as- 
sea imbu de belles lettres 9 parlant Men, ecrivant d'un style pur, aise 9 
naturel, et du meilleure gout; discret surtout 9 et reserve, avec des 
sentimens honnetes*' [Among my acquaintances, says Marmontel, 
there was at Paris a young man named Suard, whose mind was 
delicate, acute, correct and sensible; his disposition was amiable, 
his manners mild and affable ; he was well versed in the belles 
lettres, he talked well, he wrote with taste, and in a style pure, 
easy, and natural ; above all, he was discreet, prudent, and had 
the best principles]. When the original of this amiable picture, 
at the distance of nearly sixty years from the moment in which 
it was drawn, was announced to me in my own apartments in 






1 18 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

Paris, the name of Suard was not heard without emotions of 
pleasure and interest. The youth excepted, the resemblance to 
the picture was still perfect. The < haracter, the manners of 
Monsieur Suard, possess, at this moment, all the mildness, sua- 
vity, and amiability, attributed to them by his friend Marmontel: 
but he is no longer a young* debutant in the world of literature, 
« asse% imbu tie belles lettres" [well versed in the belles leu res]; 
he has for more than twenty years filled the place of secretaire 
perpetuel to the French Academy, and succeeding immediately to 
his friend Marmontel, in that high office, occupies the first ma- 
gisterial chair of the literarv empire, once solicited with such 
warmth and anxiety by contending wils. 

Monsieur Suard was received into the French academy in 
1774, with his friend the Abbe de Lille : and, as he himself re- 
lated to me, in spite of the intrigues of the celebrated Marerhal 
Due de Richelieu, who presented these two elegant writers, and 
excellent men, to Louis XV. as «* Encyclopedistes /" a term which, 
at that time, was the m >st fearful and offensive to royal ears. In 
his discours de reception, M. Suard made many strong allusions 
to the resistance offered to the progress of philosophy, and illu- 
mination ; and ingeniously observed, ** que l* esprit est comme unc 
plante, donton ne saurait arreter la vegetation, sans la f aire perir" 
[The mind is like a plant, if its growth is stopped, it perishes]. 
When the Due de Richelieu learned the election of the two « En- 
cyclopedistes," he forswore Hie Academy ; exclaiming with great 
violence : « C'est un despotisme intolerable, cliacun yfait ce qiCit 
veut" [It is an intolerable despotism, every one does what he 
pleases]. 

It was in this « discours de reception," that M. Suard made an 
enthusiastic eloge on Voltaire, which was the foundation of their 
friendship, and the origin of their intimacy ; *• and never," (ob- 
served M. Suard, speaking on the subject of his illustrious 
friend) « never was his name mentioned in the stf;rg of the 
Academy, that it was not followed with shouts of applause."-— 
The friend of Turgot, of Condorret, and of Voltaire, and stig- 
matised himself as an Encyclopedists, M. Suard could scare v\y 
fail to be among the advocates of the first revolution, for it uas 
a cause that then embraced all the genius and worth of tin- na- 
tion, with much of its rank and much of its opulence. When 
the reign of terror arose out of the frightful fermentation of his 
extraordinary and unparalleled event, M. Suard was among 
the many whose principles of moderation marked them nut as 
victims of persecution, to the infuriate and the anti-revolutionary 
faction ; and he was among the number of the deportes [tr 
ported] to Cayenne. After his return to France, and the eleva- 
tion of Buonaparte to the imperial throne, Suard was made 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. ag 

member of the Legion of Honor, and preserved his distinguish- 
ed place in the academy, though Napoleon, v\ ith his wonted 
naivete and impatience was heard to say, «« Monsieur Suard, est- 
il toujours Secretaire perpetuel de VAcademie" [Is Monsieur Suard 
always perpetual secretary of the Academy?] 

M. Suard is considered as well affected to the reigning go- 
vernment; for though ** rebellion lay in his way," as Falstaff 
says, yet eighty is not an age, in which a man would be likely 
« 'to find it." 

The King, in 1814, created M. Suard officer of the Legion of 
Honor, and Censeur Royal honor aire! I was indebted to the lovely, 
the pleasant Countess G. de la Ruchefautault, for toy acquaint- 
ance with Monsieur and Madame Suard, to whose soirees I had a 
Tery kind and frequent invitation. Madame de Suard, the friend 
of Mademoiselle de L'Espinasse, and of many other distinguished 
women of that day, was once celebrated for her beauty, and is 
still distinguished by her literary acquirements. The guest of 
Voltaire, at Ferney, and on the list of his female favourites, when 
it was observed to him that if all his works were lost, they would 
be found in the head of Madame Suard, he replied : ^Ilsdoivent 
done ctre Men corriges" [They ought then to be well corrected], 

Madame Suard always spoke to me of Voltaire, with a vene- 
ration the most profound and filial. To judge of the amiability 
of his character, she said it was necessary to live under the same 
roof with him. She asked him one day, why he kept the melan- 
choly picture of the Calas' family, which hung at the foot of 
his bed, always before his eyes ; he replied that he bad become 
identified with them and their misfortunes ; and that, until he 
had redeemed all that was then redeemable of their wrongs, he 
should never laugh, without feeling self reproach. When he gave 
up his time, his talents, his peace, in the cause of this unfortu- 
nate family, (added Mademoiselle Suard,) his efforts caused a 
general emotion in society, « e'etoit un soulevement du coeur uni- 
versel" [it was an universal rising of the heart], 

Madame Suard is author of ** Madame de Maintenon 9 piente 
p&r elle-meme" [painted by herself,] and some other literary 
productions, to which her modesty has declined lending her 
name. 

I was one evening at the Princess de Henin's, once so cele- 
brated for her beauty, and always so distinguished for the ex- 
cellence of a disposition, to which her fine countenance is << a 
fair index" and conversing witii the venerable Princesse de 
Poix, to whom 1 had been just introduced, when a gentleman 
was presented to me by the almost startling name of the Comte 
Lally Tollendal. Ireland should be proud to know that a cha- 
racter, so marked by worth and talent, and particularly distin- 
guished by those virtues which, belonging to nature, honour 



±20 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

every country in which they appear, that Lally Tollendal 
claims her as his native land. « At least," said Monsieur Tol-. 
lendal, ** it is so by sentiment, as it was by birth-right to my 
ancestors." He added, that his family belonged to the county 
of Galw y ; and he made me repeat the word Connanght to him, 
tiii he mastered the pronunciation. It is well known that the 
last line traced by that hand, which had traced so many for 
immortality, — the last line ever written by Voltaire, was ad- 
dressed to Lally Tollendal, the virtuous and successful champion 
of the honour of a legally murdered father, who placed on the 
criminal seat, bared his breast, and asked whether that was the 
recompense bestowed on fifty years' service ?* 

The fare of this wronged father determined the cast of the cha- 
racter of the son ; and the influence of a first and powerful im- 
pression betrayed itself through the course of his life and actions, 
—former! his eloquence, and decided his principles. — He found* 
or fancied he found, in the history and life of Stafford, an allego- 
rical model of injured and condemned virtue, which associated 
with all the feelings of his heart and genius, and made the death 
of this tyrannical minister, but ill-requited friend, the subject of 
a tragedy. When this production was read to Gibbon, at Lau- 
sanne, he observed, ** I know now, how Tacitus would have com- 
posed a tragedy." 

In 1795, the Comte Lally Tollendal published in London an 
« Essai historique sur la Vie de Thomas Wentwortlu Comte de Staf- 
ford" [Historical Essay on the Life of Thomas Wentworth, Earl 
of Stafford]. This work, reprinted in 1814, as applicable to the 
times, is supposed to exhibit a confession of his political princi- 
ples, and a defence against a charge of political apostacy ; to 
which something like tergiversation in his conduct, had sub- 
jected him. He had already m?de it in his tragedy, on the same 
subject : — 

" Ah ! pour ces droits du peuple et pour la liberte, 
Nul n'a fait plus que moi, tonner la veYite- 
Par des f re ins plus puissans, nul n'a voulu restreindre 
Ce pouvoir, qu'il nous faut et respecter, et craindre ; 
Mais quand j'ai vu de loin, dans tons ces zelateurs, 
Bien moms des citoyens, que des conspiratenrs, 
L'un mettant a prixd'or ses passions fact ices, 
Ne parlant de vertu, que pour teindre tes vices, 
I /autre avide d'honneurs, indigned'y monter, 
Voulant punir la main, qui dut s'en ^carter-" 



Et ce peuple 6guv6, qui d'abime en abtme, 
On conduit an malheur, par les sentiers du crime, 
I let :<s ! j'ai du fr^mir ; et je me suis arme, 
l'our I'elat en peril, pour le trone opprime." 

* See Discoiws du Comte de Lolly Tollendal, en qualite de curateur a la *Ue 
moire du Comte du Lally, sonpe're, 1783. 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. ±21 

[Ah ! for the rights of the people and for liberty, no one has thundered the 
truth oftener than 1 have. No one would h<»ve curbed with a stronger rein 
the power which we ought to respect and to fear ; but when I have seen in all 
these zealots, less of citizens than of conspirators — one selling for goid his 
factious passions, and only talking of virtue to give u colouring to vice, ano- 
ther greedy of honours which he is unworthy of possess ng, vowing vengeance 
against the hand which removes them from his reach — 

And this misguided people falling from one abyss to another, and hastening 
to misery by the paths of crime— Alas ! i ought to tremble; and I have armed 
myself in defence of the state in danger, and of the throne oppressed]. 

The life of the Earl of Stafford is partially sketched, and 
warmly coloured, by the amiable author's own feelings. His 
hero is a victim, a virtuous man innocently suffering the penalty 
of crime — hut never the advocate and minister of an undue in- 
fluence of the crown, which ended in the sacrifice of the prince, 
who abandoned him, — never the heartless oppressor of an unfor- 
tunate country, to whose misery his measures of-coercion and 
injustice so greatly contributed ; that country, of which Laily 
Tollendal boasts of being a native, and of whose long sufferings 
lie observes, « JVi la guerre des Tartar es ; ni les brigandages des 
JV*ormaiirfs, ni la persecution du Diocletian n' off re rien de plus 
horrible" [Neither the wars of the Tartars, the robberies of Hie 
Normans, or the persecution of Dioclesian offer any thing more 
horrible]. 

The Comtede Lally Tollendal enjoys that high consideration 
in France due to his talents and his virtues. The early friend 
of La Fayette, and Malesherbes, he now takes his seat among 
the constitutional members of the house of peers, and is among 
the most distinguished ornaments of the private circles of Paris. 
Full, to corpulence, in his person ; his air, manner, and tone of 
conversation, are that of a man still in the prime of life, and 
early habituated to the first ranks of society. 

The name of La Fayette has long been consecrated to fame ; 
and his existence has been so intimately woven into the history 
of his country, that her records and her cbronicl.es must have 
mouldered into nothing, ere his renown shall be forgotten, or the 
memory of his deeds have faded into oblivion. The recent and 
extraordinary events, which again, for the moment, forced this 
modern Cincinnatus from his plough, to assist in councils, which, 
had for their object the fate of an empire, have brought him be- 
fore the eyes of the world, in all the original splendour of his 
long-tried virtue; and have naturally refreshed recollections, 
which time might have tarnished, or policy discoloured or re- 
pressed. 

The Marquis de la Fayette appeared at the French court, to 
which his rank had called him, while yet a boy. Too young to 

PART II. R 



12^, EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

be insensible to its pleasures, hut too noble to be tainted by its 
corruptions, he obstinately refused a pla< e, voluntarily offered to 
him, as the stepping-stone to surli honours as courtiers eagerly 
solicit. He had already, at the age of sixteen, felt and acknow- 
ledged another \ oration. The star of political liberty was at 
that period observed rising brightly in the west, and La Fayette 
was among the first who went forth from a distant land, to wor- 
ship it. The young and illustrious pilgrim was received with 
joyous admiration by those, whose cause he came to defend. 
T)je genuine French cavalier entered the American armv. as a 
simple volunteer, and fought his way to military distinction, till 
his own feats obtained for him that rank, which his modesty and 
pride had before rejected, as an unmerited gift. He was made 
Major-General by Washington, who opposed his valour to 
the experience of Clinton, and to the skill of Cornwallis. After 
having received a sword from the hands of Franklin, presented 
by the American states, he returned to France, the leader of 
armies, the counsellor of statesmen, and the friend of philoso- 
phers, at the premature age of twenty-two \ \ \ 

The court and the people alike came forward to receive and 
welcome the young hero, who had reflected such credit on his 
country ; who united the gay, gallant, fearless spirit of ancient 
chivalry, to the modern principles of philosophical liberty. His 
mission to France, in which he was joined with Franklin, to ob- 
tain men and money from the government, for the promotion of 
the American cause, was eminently successful. The court did 
not then foresee the result of its own mistaken and selfish poli- 
cy. Governed by every-day expediency, it sought only to f cd 
a flame, which consumed the strength of England ; and little 
dreamed that from that flame a spark would proceed, which 
would eventually kindle the inflammable mass collected within its 
own bosom. 

It was after the peace with America, that General La Fayette 
visiting once more the land of his caely and successful enterprise, 
was received in the congress of the United States, with a sort of 
Roman triumph; while his journey through the villages was me 
perpetuated scene of joy and festivity. On his return to Europe, 
in 1785, he travelled through Germany, and brought even to the 
court of the Caesars, as he had done to the pavilions of Ver- 
sailles, the spirit of a pure and antique attachment to liberty, w ith 
the graces of a gallant soldier, and accomplished gem h man; and 
he was received by Joseph the Second, and Frederu k the Great, 
with flattering distinction. It was in accompanying the latter 
to his reviews, that he had an opportunity afforded him of close 
observation of the military genius of that royal tactician, with 
which he doubtless enriched his own experience. 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. Igg 

A restless activity in the cause of ail that is great or good, 
united the efforts of General La Fayette to those of Malesherbes; 
for the amelioration of the condition of the French protestants; 
and, at the same time, he devoted his powers and fortune to the 
gradual redemption of the blacks. While the court of Versailles 
protected the Barbary corsairs, he opposed the measure at 
home, and assisted Jefferson in his league against that piratical 
band, so long the shame and scourge of Europe. Called to the 
assembly of the Notables, in 1787, La Fayette was the first to 
raise his voice for the suppression of letters-de-cachet 9 and of state 
prisons; to obtain a favourable decree for the French protest- 
ants, and to propose a national assembly to France! "Quoi!" 
said the timid courtier, the Count D * * * *, "vous faites la 
motion des etats-generaux ?" " Et mime mienx que celct /*' [What 
— you make the motion of the states-general ? — And better even 
than that], replied La Fayette. 

The part which General La Fayette took in the first revolu- 
tion, was too conspicuous to require at the present day a minute 
detail. Actuated exclusively by the love of his country, his mo- 
tives and conduct have, however, been alike calumniated by the 
emigrants and the jacobins ; to whose selfishness and personality 
his example and his influence were equally opposed ; and \n bile 
the family of Louis XVI. rejected his proffered assistance, in 
distrust of his exertions in the cause of freedom, he was already 
marked out for destruction by the clubs, for his strenuous at- 
tachment to constitutional monarchy. The spirit by which he 
was governed, cannot be better displayed, than in his reply to 
the eager enthusiasm of the mob ; when, in the day of his bright- 
est popularity, the ever-memorable fourteenth of July, he ex- 
claimed to those who pressed round him, « Jlimez les amis du 
peuple, mais reserves Vaveugle soumission pour la loi, et Venthou- 
siasme pour la UberW [Love the friends of the people, but re- 
member submission to the laws, and enthusiasm for liberty]. 

When the march of the revolution was interrupted, and its 
objects frustrated by the intrigues of faction, and the fury of 
democracy, La Fayette exposed himself steadily to the colossal 
and disorganising power of the Jacobins. « Que le regne des 
clubs," he exclaimed, " aneanti par vous, fasse place au regne de 
la loi" [May the reign of the clubs (annihilated by you) give 
place to the reign of the law.] But his genius and his senti- 
ments no longer belonged to that day of blood. Denounced by 
the Jacobins, and brought to trial by their machinations, his 
conduct placed him above the reach of their calumnies, and 
he was acquitted. When, however, the sanguinary law of pro- 
scription was fulminated against him, he disdained to degrade 
himself by an useluess defence. Accompanied by his friend 



J24 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

Maubourg, of whom he himself observes, "Vnnion avec moi est 
aussi ancienne que noire vie" [his union with me is as old as our 
Jives;] and by iiis aid-de-cam p, Alexandre Lameth, he quitted 
the polluted territory of his country. 

The object of the patriot fugitives was, to gain either the 
neutral states of Holland or England ; and they had already 
safely arrived beyond the frontiers of France, when they were 
taken by a corps of Austrian troops, and delivered over to the 
power of the coalition. Sent successively, as prisoners of war, 
to the fortresses of Luxembourg, Wezel, Magdebourg, and 01- 
mutz, their patriotism was punished by privations and hardships, 
which exceeded the rigours of inquisitorial severity. La Fayette 
was soon separated from the companions of his flight ; and worn 
out by suffering and persecution, he was dying in the dungeons 
of Wezel, when a ray of hope was offered to his despair by Fre- 
derick William ; who proposed, as the purchase of his liberty, 
that he should furnish a plan against France ; ungrateful France ! 
in whose cause he then suffered. The energy of his reply, 
evinced his high disdain of the shameless proposal. " No, never," 
said Mr. Fox, speaking of this event, « never could such perfidy 
approach that heart, which never, for one moment, ceased to 
nourish the sacred fire of patriotism, the purest and most re- 
ligious." 

At length the moment of liberation arrived ; a liberation, for 
which La Fayette was more indebted to the good feeling of an 
individual, than to compatriot generosity or national repentance. 
It was upon his own responsibility, that Buonaparte made the 
surrender of La Fayette, Maubourg, and Bureau de Pt.zy, 
(Lameth had previously been delivered, through the intercession 
of his mother,) an article in the treaty, which he dictated to 
Austria, at Leoben. In this clause the directory were so far 
from participating, that they then refused to reverse the out- 
lawry of those, whom their general had thus restored to liberty.* 
I have heard General La Fayette revert to the obligation he thus 
incurred to the'late Emperor, with sentiments of the warmest 
gratitude; but in this instance, his feelings held no influence 
o\er a conduct invariably governed by principles. 

* The American government were laudably active to procure La Fayette's 
release. When Washington had in vain reclaimed him of the Austrian go- 
vernment, clandestine attempts were made, by American agents, to procure 
his escape, which were so far successful that they succeeded in releasing him 
from Olmutz! But the general being wounded in the adventure, he was reta- 
ken within eight leagues of his prison. It is reported, that when Madame 
La Payette solicited the Emperor in her husband's favour, he made her his 
singular answer: " J'ui lea mains ti/es" [My hands are tied] If this b< IX c. 
there was at the time but one c b net capable of exerting such an influence; 
and a Briton would be the last to believe the "damning tale." 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. \%£ 

Returned to his country, he remained steady to those princi- 
ples which had guided him through life, — which had led him to 
the deserts of America, — which had inspired him in the conflicts 
of revolutionary France, — had shielded him from the corruption 
of courts, and consoled him in the dungeons of captivity. When 
he (iiscovered that his opinions of the character and views of 
Buonaparte were ill founded, that he who had generously un- 
lo< ked his own chains, was already engaged in weaving shackles 
for his country, he broke off all intercourse with his deliverer, 
refused the share offered to him in public affairs, declined the 
senatorial dignity anxiously pressed on his acceptance, and by 
his bold restrictive vote against the consulship for life, snapped 
for ever the tye, which, under the paramount influence of grati- 
tude, had for a moment bound him to a man, whose views differ- 
ed so wide] j from his own. 

Firm of purpose, steady, inflexible, pursuing with the same 
undeviating step the luminous path of patriotism, from winch 
ambition had never seduced, nor interest misled him, he retreat- 
ed from public life, sheathed a sword, no longer to be brandished 
in the cause of freedom, and forgot, in the simple occupations of 
his farm, that he had once shared and influenced the destinies of 
an empire. Refusing inflexibly to bow before the sun of impe- 
rial power, he accepted his retraite de general, and gave himself 
up exclusively to the endearments of domestic life, the pursuits 
of literature and science, and the interests and improvements of 
agriculture. 

General La Fayette had, early in life, sacrificed a large part 
of his fortune to the popular cause; and it was in the name of 
that cause, he was deprived of nearly all that his prodigality 
had permitted him to reserve. He had refused emoluments 
and restitutions in the two hemispheres, but the territories of 
the Dutchess de Noailles, who was guillotined by Robespierre, 
were restored to her son-in-law, which placed him, on his re- 
turne to France, at the head of a property at least competent 
to his desires. 

General La Fayette had married a daughter of the illustrious 
house of Noailles ; and the history of female virtue and female 
heroism presents nothing more rare in excellence, than the life 
and character of Madame La Fayette. — " Such characters," — 
says Charles Fox, speaking of this admirable pair, — " should 
flourish in the annals of the world, and live to posterity, when kings 
and the crowns they wear must have mouldered into dust." — 
While La Fayette, rescued by flight from the scaffold in France, 
lay incarcerated in the dungeons of Olmutz, his devoted wife, 
uncertain even of his existence, and saved herself, by the death 
of Robespierre, from the guillotine, where so many of her family 






1%Q EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

had perished, sent her young and only son to the care and pro- 
tection of General Washington ; and, accompanied by her two 
daughters, with a constitution already broken down by suffering 
and grief, she hastened to Vienna, and obtained an interview 
with the Emperor, at whose feet she solicited permission to en 
tomb herself and her children in the dungeon of her husband, 
This was all that was asked, and all that was obtained. On t lie- 
point of falling a victim to conjugal tenderness, reduced almost 
to the grave by a few months' confinement, amidst noxious va- 
pours and unwholesome damps, the permission she solicited to 
go to Vienna, to consult a physician, was only granted her on 
the proviso of never returning to Oimutz. The alternative was 
instantly accepted, and Madame de la Fayette composed herself 
for death, in the arms and the dungeon of her husband. His 
delivery produced a reprieve to a life so precious. He bore her 
to her native France, to her own patrimonial woods of La 
Grange. Revived, not rescued, she lived to behold the return 
of her brave son, the re-union of her family, and then sunk into 
the tomb. 

On the return of Napoleon from Elba, he deputed his bro- 
ther Joseph to solicit General La Fayette's acceptance of the 
peerage. «« Should I ever again appear on the scene of public 
life," replied La Fayette to the ex-king of Spain, « it can only 
be as a representative of the people." He was ar< ordiugly 
elected, by his own department, a member of the corps legislati/, 
and, as he himself expressed it, in the chamber of deputies, »< a 
veteran in the cause of liberty, a stranger to the spirit of fac- 
tion ;" he exhibited in 1816, to his country, a bright untarnish- 
ed model of the true, pure, incorruptible constitutionalists of 
1789; — whose-views for the liberty and happiness of their coun- 
try had been successively and effectually frustrated, by the sor- 
did selfishness of antiquated privilege, by the factious intrigues 
of sanguinary democracy, and by the aspiring views of bold, 
boundless, and despotic ambition. 

At the expiration of thirty years, La Fayette appeared before 
his country, with the same immutability of principle, the same 
energy of spirit and force of eloquence, as was possessed by him, 
to whom America raised statues, ere manhood had shed its 
down upon his cheek! — to whom the military spirit of France de- 
voted a sword of victory, formed out of the dungeon-bars of the 
Bastile, which he had broken/ 

It was among the generous feelings of Buonaparte, (and he 
had not a few,) to hold the virtues of La Fayette in veneration. 
When intelligence was brought him, to the Bourbon Elysee, 
pending the discussions respecting the dictatorship, that La 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. ±%y 

Fayette was in the tribune, haranguing the assembly ; he rei- 
terated the disastrous intelligence: — ** La Fa>ette in the tri- 
bune ! !" while a spoon, with which he was trifling, fell from his 
hand ; and his altered countenance proclaimed his convu tion, 
that ** all was over." 

Tiie conduct of La Fayette during this most eventful period, 
when lie invoked the representatives of the people ** to rnlly 
round the national standard of 1789 ;" when he asserted that 
* ( it belonged to them to defend the honour and independence of 
France against the pretensions of the enemy ;" is fresh in every 
recollection. But it may not be uninteresting to those, who have 
admired him only in public life, to follow this brave warrior and 
real patriot, from the scene of unequal contention, to that re- 
treat of peace where the milder excellencies of the man are call- 
ed into full existence, and even now appear fresh and unadul- 
terated by time and suffering, in all the unpretending simplicity 
of genuine intrinsic virtue. 

General La Fayette has not appeared in Paris, since the re- 
turn of the Bourbon dynasty to France. — And I should have left 
that country, without having seen one of its greatest ornaments, 
had not a flattering invitation from the Chateau La Grange ena- 
bled me to gratify a wish, long and devoutly cherished, of 
knowing, or at least of beholding, its illustrious masters.— In- 
troduced by proxy to the family of La Fayette, by the young 
and amiable Princess Charles de B * * # , we undertook our 
journey to La Grange with the same pleasure, as the pilgrim 
begins his first unwearied steps to the shrine of sainted excel- 
lent e. 

The Chateau of La Grange-BIessneau lies in the fertile dis- 
trict of La Brie; so remote from any high road, so lonely, so 
wood embosomed, that a spot more sequestered, more apparent- 
ly distant from the bustling world, and all its scenes of conflict 
and activity, can scarcely be imagined.— Having left the public 
road about thirty miles from Paris, and struck into an almost 
impassable chemin-de-tr avers [cross-road], we trusted to the 
hints and guidance of shepherds, wood-cutters and gardes-chain- 
petres for a clue to the labyrinth we were pursuing. They all 
knew the chateau la Grange; and by their directions, we pro- 
ceeded from one « deep-entangled glen" to another ; jolting 
over stony brooks, floundering through rapid mill-streams ; 
sometimes buried in forests of fruit-trees, and sometimes driving 
through farm-yards, to the dismay of the poultry, and the amuse- 
ment of their owners ; while our coachman and a French ser- 
vant, who accompanied us, had always some question to ask, or 
some courtesy to offer and receive. 

In crossing a chemin-pave [paved road], as it was called, we 



l%g EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

were pointed out the remains of a Roman road ; and the spot 
was marked where a battle was fought, in March, 1814, between 
Buonaparte and the Austrians, called the Battle of Mormans, in 
which the French arms wore victorious. This skirmish prefaced 
the great engagement of Montreau. 

In the midst of this fertile and luxuriant wilderness, rising 
above prolific orchards and antiquated woods, appeared the five 
towers of La Grange-Blessneau, tinged with the golden ra>s of 
the setting sun. Through the boles of the trees, appeared the 
pretty village of Aubepierre, once, perhaps, the dependency of 
the castle, and clustering near the protection of its walls. A re- 
moter view of the village of D'Hieres, with its gleaming river 
and romantic valley, was caught and lost, alternately, in the 
serpentine mazes of the rugged road; which, accommodated to 
the groupings of the trees, wound amidst branches laden with 
ripening fruit, till its rudeness sullenly subsided in the velvet 
lawn that immediately surrounded the castle. The deep moat, 
the draw-bridge, the ivied tower, and arched portals, opening 
into the square court, had a feudal and picturesque character; 
and, combined with the reserved tints and fine repose of •even- 
ing, associated with that exaltation of feeling which belonged to 
the moment preceding a first interview with those, on whom the 
mind has long dwelt with admiration or interest. 

We found General La Fayette surrounded by his patriarchal 
family ; — his excellent s >n and daughter-in-law, his two daugh- 
ters (the sharers of lis dungeon in Olmutz) and their husbands; 
eleven grand-children, and a venerable grand-uncle, the ex- 
grand prior of Malta, with hair as white as snow, and his cross 
and his order worn, as proudly as when he had issued forth at 
the head of his pious troops, against the "paynimfoe" or 
Christian enemy. Such was the group that received us in the 
salon kf La Grange , such was the close-knit circle that made 
our breakfast and our dinner party; accompanied us in our de- 
lightful rambles through the grounds and woods of La Grange, 
and constantly presented the most perfect unity of family inter- 
esis, habits, taste, and affections. 

We naturally expect to find strong traces of time in the form 
of those, with whose name and deeds we have been long acquaint- 
ed ; <f those who had obtained the suffrages of the world, al- 
most before we had entered it. But, on the person of La Fay- 
ette, time has left no impression ; not a wrinkle furrows the am- 
ple brow ; and his unbent, and noble figure, is still as upright, 
bold, and vigorous, as the mind that informs it. Grace, strength, 
and dignity still distinguish the fine person of this extraordina- 
ry man; who, though more than forty years before the world, 
engaged in scenes of strange and eventful conflict, does not yet 



EMINENT AND LITER \RY CHARACTERS. l%$ 

appear to have reached liis climacteric. Bustling and active in 
his farm, graceful and elegant in his salon, itis difficult to trace, 
in one of rite most successful agriculturists, and one of the most 
perfect fine gentlemen that France has produced, a warrior and 
a legislator. The patriot, however, is always discernible. 

In the full possession of e\ery faculty and talent he ever pos- 
sessed, the memory of M. La Fayette has all the tenacity of 
unworn youthful recollection ; and. besides these, high views of 
all that is most elevated in the mind's conception. His conver- 
sation is brilliantly enriched with anecdotes of all that is -cele- 
brated, in character and event, for the last fifty years. He still 
talks with unwearied delight of his short visir to England, to his 
friend Mr. Fox, and dwelt on the witchery of the late Dutchess 
of Devonshire, with almost boyish enthusiasm. He speaks and 
writes Fnglish with the same elegance he does Ins native tongue. 
He has made himself master of ail that is best worth knowing, 
in English literature and philosophy. I observed that his library 
contained many of our most eminent authors upon all subjects. 
His elegant, and well chosen, collection of books, occupies the 
highest apartments in one of the towers of the chateau ; ?nd, like 
the study of Montaigne, hangs over the farm-yard of the philo- 
sophical agriculturist. — *< It frequently happens," said M. La 
Fayette, as we were looking out of the window at some flocks, 
which were moving beneath, «« it frequently happens that my 
Mt-rinos, and my hay carts, dispute my attention with your 
Hume, or our own Voltaire." 

He spoke with great pleasure on the visit paid him at La 
Grange some years ago, by Mr. Fox and General Fitzpatrick. 
He took me out, the morning after my arrival, to show me a 
tower, richly covered with ivy : — « It was Fox," he said, " who 
planted that ivy ! I have taught my grand-children to venerate 
it." 

The chateau La Grange does not, however, want other points 
of interest.* — Founded by Louis Le Gros, and occupied by the 
princes of Lorraine, the mark of a cannon ball is still visible in 
one of its towers, which penetrated the masonry, when attacked 
by Marechal Turerme. Here, in the plain, but spacious, salon-d- 
manger [eating room], the peasantry of the neighbourhood, and 
the domestics of the castle, assemble every Sunday ey T ening in 
winter, to dance to the violin of the concierge [porter], and are 
regaled with cakes, and eau-sncree. The General is usually, 
and his family are always, present, at these rustic balls. The 
young people occasionally dance among the tenantry, and set 

* The chateau and territory of La Grange Blessnau, belonged to the Xoa- 
illes' family, and came into M. La Fayette's hands, in right of Madame La 
•Fayette. 

PART II. 8 



|30 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

the examples of new steps, freshly imported by their Paris 
dancing- master.* 

In the summer, this patriarchal re-union takes place in the 
park, where a space is cleared for the purpose, shaded b\ the 
lofty trees which encircle it. A thousand times, in contemplating 
La Fayette, in the midst of this charming family, the last years 
of the life of the Chancellor de PHopital recurred to me, — he, 
whom the naive Brantome likens to Cato ; and who, loving liberty 
as he hated faction, retired from a court unworthy of his virtues, 
to his little domain of Vignay, which he cultivated himself. 
There, surrounded by his wife and children, nine grand-children, 
and a number of faithful servants, grown grey in his service, he 
describes his life in the following simple and natural manner : — 
ff Je vis comme Laerte, cultivant mes champs, et ne rcgrettant rien 
de ce quej'ai laisse. Je voudrais plus cette retraite, qui satisfait 
mon coeur etfiatie egalement ma vanite ; j'aime a me representer, 
a la suite de cesfameux exiles d'Mhenes et de Rome, que leur vertu 
avail rendu redoutables a leurs concitoyens. Je vis an milieu d'une 
famille nombreuse que faime; je lis, et ecris 9 je medite, je prends 
plaisir aux jeux de mes petits enfans ; leurs occupations les plus 
simples m> inter essent. Enjin tons mes momens sont remplis, et rien 
ne manquerait a mon bonheur, sans ce voisinage affrenx, qui vient 
quelqntfois porter le trouble etla desolation dans moncozur" [1 live 
like Laertes, cultivating my fields, and regretting nothing that I 
have left behind me. This retirement satisfies both my heart 
and my vanity ; I compare myself to those famous exiles of 
Athens and of Rome, w horn their virtue had rendered formidable 
to their fellow-citizens. — I see myself in the midst of a numerous 

* At the chateau D'Orsonville, the seat of the Marquis and Marchioness de 
Colbert Chabanais, I observed great attention was paid to procuring innocent 
recreation for their tenancy and peasantry. In the lawn before the castle 
windows there was a "jeu de bagxie" (a sort of merry go-round) a swing, a 
spot cleared for them to dance on, and many little sources of amusement, in- 
vented and multiplied, to preserve them from the temptation of the village. 
On Sundays, they crowded on the lawn with a confidence in their welcome, 
tha was quite delightful'. In the good old times, when the " manie de der- 
gerie" [p storal mania] peopled the grounds of the chateau, for a few weeks 
in the summer, with shepherds a iovpet fuse [with frizzed toupees], and 
shepherdesses in court-hoops, (the originals of the figures which ornament 
chimney-pieces in Sevres china, and biscuit,) it was the fashion to talk in rap- 
tures of the couniry, but to stipulate, at the same time, in the marriage arti- 
cles, that it should only be visited for a certain period in the year. Then, as 
now , the peasants were occasionally invited to rural festivities on the box-lined 
lawns of the chateau, but a dance, d la ronde, was liable to be interrupted by 
its members being sent to the gullies, for some recent violation of the droits de 
chasse [game I *ws], and the gay candidates for the "jeu de bagve" to be dis- 
patched, 6 ^impromptu, to fulfil the duties of the corvee, in some distant dis- 
trict. There were then no rights, no securities for the people, and there could 
be no confidence, and but little enjoyment. 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 43^ 

family whom I love. I rend, I write. ! meditate. 1 tike pleasure 
even in the sports of my grand-child ppn : their most simple oc- 
cupations interest me. — In short, even moment of my time is 
filial up, and nothing would be wanting to my happiness, v. ere 
it not for this dreadful neighbourhood, which so etimes brings 
trouble and desolation to my heart]. This letter of de I'Eiopi- 
tal. might form the journal of La Fayette, in all its details and 
spirit. 

In accompanying this, « last of the Romans" through his ex- 
tensive farms, visiting his sheep-folds, bis row-stalls, his dairies, 
(of all of which he was justly proud, and occasionally asking me, 
whether it was not something in the English style,) I was sir nek 
with his gracious manner to the peasantry, and to the workmen 
engaged in the various rustic offices of his domains. He almost 
always addressed them with « mon ami" — monbonami." — "mini 
cher garqon ;" while " ma bonne mere" and ••' ma cherefiUe" [<• my 
friend,'* — •• my good friend," — k * my dear bo\ f 9 while •• my 
good mother," and, " my dear girl,"] were invited to display the 
delicacies of the cream- pans and cheese- presses, or to parade 
their turkeys and ducklings for our observation and amusement. 
And this condescending kindness seems repaid by boundless af- 
fection, and respect amounting to veneration. What was once 
the verger [orchard] of the chateau, where anciently the feudal 
seigneur regaled himself in the evening, with the officers of his 
household, and played chess with his chaplain, is now extended 
behind the castle, into a noble park, cut out of the luxuriant 
woods ; the trees being so cleared away, and disposed of, as to 
sprinkle its green and velvet lawn with innumerable clumps of 
lofty oaks, and fantastic elms. *< This is rather English, too," 
said General La Fa\ette; "but it owes the greater part of its 
beauty to the taste of our celebrated landscape-painter, Robert, 
who assisted me in laying out the grounds, and disposing of my 
wood scenery." 

It was whilst walking by a bright moon-light, in these lovely 
grounds, that I have listened to their illustrious master, conver- 
sing upon almost every >ubject worthy to engage the mind of a 
great and good man ; sometimes in French, sometimes in Eng- 
lish ; always with eloquence, fluency, and spirit. 

Our mid-day ramble was of a less serious character; for, as the 
young people were let loose from their studies to accompany us, 
we issued forth a party of twenty strong. Upon these occasions 
the Grand Prior took a very distinguished part. He was evidently 
a popular leader upon such expeditions, and having given orders 
to a party to go in search of some peculiarly beautiful corn flow- 
ers, which were destined to assist the dinner toilette, the 1 • reran 
knight marshalled his divisions, and commanded the expedition, 



132 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

with an earnestness and a gravity, which very evidently showed 
him as much interested in this predatory warfare upon blooms 
and odours, as his well disciplined little troops. S<>me error, 
however, in their evolutions, just as the word of command was 
given, struck the General La Fayette himself, who commanded a 
halt, and suggested the experience of his counsel to the science 
of the Maltese tactics. It was curious to observe the represen- 
tative of the Grand Masters of the Knights of St. John of Jeru- 
salem, and the General-commandant of the national army of 
France; mavoeuvering this little rifle corps, and turning powers 
that had once their influence over the fate of Europe, against 
corn-flowers and May-sweets. 

1 was desirous to learn how Buonaparte seemed affected at 
the moment that General La Fayette, at the head of the deputa- 
tion who came to thank him in the name of the chamber for his 
voluntary abdication, appeared before him. « We found him," 
said General La Fayette, " upon this occasion, as upon many 
others, acting out of the ordinary rules of calculation ; neither 
affecting the pathetic dignity of fallen greatness, nor evincing 
the uncontrollable dejection of disappointed ambition, of hopes 
crushed, never to revive, and of splendor quenched, never to re- 
kindle. We found him calm and serene — he received us with 
a faint, but gracious smile — .he spoke with firmness and preci- 
sion. I think the parallel for this moment was that, when he 
presented his breast to the troops drawn out against him, on his 
return from Elba, exlaiming, " I am your emperor, strike if 
you will." There have been splendid traits in the life of this 
man. not to be reconciled to his other modes of conduct : — his 
character is out of all ordinary keeping, and to him the doctrine 
of probabilities could never, in any instance, be applied." 

A few days before this memorable interview, La Fayette had 
said in the assembly, in answer to Lucien Buonaparte's re- 
proaches, who accused the nation of levity in its conduct to- 
wards the Emperor, " Go, tell your brother, that we will trust 
him no longer ; we will ourselves undertake the solvation of our 
country." And Napoleon had learnt that, if Ins abdication was 
not sent to the chamber within one hour, M. La Fayette had re- 
solved to move for his expulsion. Yet Buonaparte received this 
firm opposer of all his views with graciousness and serenity; 
and it was this resolute and determined foe to his power, who, 
after this interview, demanded that the liberty and life of Napo- 
leon should be put under the protection of the French people. 
But Napoleon, always greater in adversity than in prosperity, 
chose to trust to the generosity of the English nation, and to 
seek safety and protection amidst what he deemed a great and a 
free people. This voluntary trust, so confidingly placed, so sa- 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 133 

credly reposed, was a splendid event in the history of England's 
greatness — it was a bright reflection on the records of her vir- 
tues ! It illuminated a page in her chronicles, on which the eye 
of posterity might have dwelt with transport ! It placed her 
pre-eminent among cotemporary nations! Her powerful ene- 
my, against whom she had successfully armed and coalesced the 
civilised world, chose his place of refuge, in the hour of adver- 
sity, in her bosom, because he knew her brave, and believed her 
magnanimous ! 

Alone, in his desolate dwelling; deprived of every solace of 
humanity ; torn from those ties, which alone throw a ray of 
brightness over the darkest shades of misfortune; wanting all 
the comforts, and many of the necessaries of life ; the victim of 
the caprice of perty delegated power; harassed by every-day op- 
pression ; mortified by mean, reiterated, hourly privation; 
chained to a solitary and inaccessible rock, with no object on 
which to fix his attention, but the sky, to whose inclemency he 
is exposed ; or that little spot of earth, within whose narrow' 
bounds he is destined to wear away the dreary hours of unva- 
ried captivity, in hopeless, cheerless, life-consuming misery! 
Where now is his faith in the magnanimity of England? his trust 
in her generosity ? his hopes in her beneficence ? 

The regret we felt in leaving La Grange, was proportioned 
to the expectations, with which we arrived before its gates, to 
the pleasure we enjoyed under its roof. It is a memorable 
event in the life of ordinary beings, to be permitted a proximate 
view of a great and good man ! It is refreshment to the feel- 
ings, which the world may have withered !— * it is expansion to 
the mind, which the world may have harrowed ! It chases from 
the memory the traces of all the littlenesses, the low, mean, and 
sordid passions, bv which the multitudes of society are actuated; 
the successes of plodding mediocrity; the triumphs of time- 
serving obsequiousness ; and the selfish views of power and am- 
bition, for the destruction of the many, and the debasement of 
all ! To have lived under the roof of La Fayette ; to have con- 
versed with hiin, and listened to him, was opening a splendid 
page in the history of man. It was perused with edification 
and delight, and its impression can only fade with memory and 
life. 

In the brief history of the French republic, the name of Gin- 
guene holds a place among those, whose pure intentions, and 
patriotic views, stand nobly opposed to the selfish and sangui- 
nary democrjc;, that succeeded to, and overwhelmed them. — His 
character has been said to have been of that true antique mould, 
which the best pages of Greek and Roman history present, for 



J34* EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

the example and admiration of mankind, and his works have 
long had a distinguished place allotted them, in the classical 
literature of his country. — With many claims to poetical repu- 
tation, on the continent, which hate been long admitted, Mon- 
sieur Ginguene is best known, in England, by his able and ele- 
gant work on Italian literature. — He made his debut in Paris in 
1772, then scarcely twenty, and fresh from his province. His 
pretty poem of ** La Confession de Zulmt" obtained him the uni- 
versal suffrage of the higher circles; and the severe republican 
of future times was then only known, as a charming poet, and 
as, " un homme de bonne compagnie" [a man who kept good com- 
pany]. 

The friend of the celebrated and unfortunate Chamfort, Gin- 
guene participated in his political principles; and distinguished 
himself among the writers of the "feuille villageoise." — During 
the early part of the revolution, he was sole manager of the com- 1 *' 
mittee of public instruction, and was soon elected member of the 
Institute of France. Having refused the plate of minister to 
the Hanseatic cities, he was sent ambassador to Sardinia; and 
in 1798, concluded an arrangement with the then reigning sove- 
reign, who placed the citadel of Turin in the power of France. 
After the revolution of the 18th of Brumaire. Monsieur Ginguene 
was elected tribune ; — but retiring from public life in 1802, he 
gave up his talents and time to the exclusive pursuits of litera- 
ture, and produced works, which have reflected equal credit on 
his genius and his heart. 

The republican spirit of Ginguene forbad his bending the knee 
before the imperial power; and though he remained member ot 
the Institute, and professor of Italian literature, at the Mlienee, 
he neither sought, nor was offered any place under the govern- 
ment. His well known hostility to despotism deprived him of 
the favour of the sovereign, but drew down no persecution, and 
he was passed over in silence, and distinguished only by ne- 
glect, — after he rejected offers, and refused solicitations, which 
might have drawn down a heavier penalty from mortified great- 
ness. 

On the second abdication of Napoleon, a proposal was made 
to Ginguene, to celebrate the event in verse, by enumerating the 
crimes of the "usurper." — "Qui? moil" [Who? I!] replied 
Ginguene, with indignation, to the courtier who made the pro- 
posal, « addresse%>-vous pour cela a ceux, qui I'ont louel" [address 
yourself to those who have flattered him!] This hint was not 
suffered to lie idle. Of the many who lived by flattering the 
Emperor, nearly all were found willing to owe their subsistence 
to the abuse they lavished on him. 

On the second restoration of the Bourbons it was rumoured. 



EMINENT ANP LITERARY CHARACTERS. l%& 

a 
and perhaps idly, that Ginguene had become an object of state 
aversion, out of compliment to Sardinia ; the part he had played 
there, during the abdication of the present sovereign, being still 
fresh in remembrance. A letter too had been recently brought 
to light, written by Ginguene to a French friend, at that period, 
in which he boasted, that »» Madame Ginguine, in the true cos- 
tume of a republican ambassadress, had appeared at the court of 
Turin, in cotton stockings" — «* What a triumph for republicanism.' 99 
added M. Ginguene, with more gaite-de-cozur, than became a 
minister. It was vainly urged, that cotton stockings were now 
admitted into the royalist toilette; that the prettiest ultra ancles 
in France had adopted them, in preference to the silken hose of 
the old regime ; and that even the least decided female politician 
in Paris, might appear in silk on one day, or cotton on another, 
without incurring the odium of tergiversation, or being added to 
the list of girouettes [weather-cocks]. The cotton stockings were 
4( damning proofs" of inveterate republicanism, not to he gotten 
over ; and M. Ginguene consulted his peace, as well as his 
health, by retiring from Paris, where he might no longer be 
permitted to « rest on roses" and to abandon, for" the solitude of 
the country, those enlightened circles, in which his distinguished 
name is never mentioned, hut with the endearing epithet of " le 
bon Ginguene" [the good Ginguene]. 

It was in the beginning of the year 1816, that M. Ginguene 
sought a permanent and peaceful retreat in his cottage, at Eau- 
bonne, accompanied by his excellent, his inestimable wife, and 
an adopted son, a young English boy, the object of their mutual 
care and instruction.* It was to this cottage we received an 
invitation from Monsieur and Madame Ginguene ; and few invi- 
tations, during our residence in France, were received with more 
pleasure, or accepted with more willingness. Eaubonne, the 
residence of St. Lambert, of Madame d'Houdetot, the shrine of 
so many of the enamoured pilgrimages of Rousseau, has many 
claims to celebrity. It is a retired and romantic little village, 
hanging over the valley of Montmorency, and adding much to 
the picturesque beauty of that delicious scene. We approached 
Eaubonne through a wood of cherry-trees and vine-yards, the 
one in full fruit, the other in full blossom; and by a path-way, 
so wild and intricate, and so steep in its ascent, that we were 
obliged to walk for more than the distance of half a mile, while 
our carriage followed us, with difficulty, up the ascent. 

The sweet dwelling of Monsieur Ginguene lay immediately 
under the heights of Montmorenci, on the brow of a steep accli- 

* A son of the once celebrated P , the quondam editor of a London even- 
ing paper, now no longer remarkable for its love of liberty. 



136 



EMINENT AND LITERARY. CHARACTERS. 



vity, and in the midst of a beautiful garden, then rich in all the 
blooms and odours of the season, whose emanations were rolled 
forth by the ardours of a brilliant, but almost insupportable sun. 
We found the excellent and distinguished master of this delicious 
scene, drooping, and fading, in the midst of all that breathed of 
animation ; M. Ginguene, even then, appeared to us fast ap- 
proaching to the last stage of a consumption. But the first flut- 
ter over, with wbloh a confirmed invalid ret eives tne stranger's 
first visit; and all bodily infirmity disappeared before the bril- 
liant vigour <>f a mind, which flowed through endless pleasant- 
ries, and which, by its pointed turns and happy allusions, gave 
to the conversation of a philosopher the epigrammatic vein, that 
makes a reputation for wit in the mere man of the world. M. 
Ginguene had come down from his study to receive us ; and, in 
spite of our remonstrances, he would accompany us to the gar- 
de-', and would even have attempted the heights of Montmoren- 
ci, to point out to us some peculiarly fine views of the valley be- 
neath, if we had not almost forcibly obliged him to relinquish an 
attempt, to which he must have found himself unequal. 

M. Ginguene is a passionate lover of rural life ; and when the 
talked to me of the peace and happiness of his retreat; when he 
pointed out the variety of his roses ; when he sp< ke of the grafts 
he intended to make for the future seasons, it was at once plea- 
sant and melancholy to listen to him. Death was imprinted on 
his brow, and he talked only of the renovated life of a future 
spring ! As I was assisting him in gathering some flowers, the 
gardener, a fat, good-humoured looking peasant, rolled his bar- 
row closely by us. M. Ginguene asked him for a string to tie 
up our nosegays, by the endearing appellation of " Man bon 
Charles," I repeated, from his own charming fable of the "Peach 
Tree," 



• Mon bon Charles, 



Qui plus et mieux qu'un oiseau parte." 
[My good Charles, who chatters more and better than the birds]. 



" Yes," said M. Ginguene, "you are quite right; that is " Mon 
bon Charles," the hero of ** Le vieux Pecker" which you have 
the goodness to remember. 

The whole of this pretty fable is so indicative of the character 
and pursuits of the amiable fabulist, and so peculiarly illustrative 
of the simplicity of his manners, and the peculiar pleasantry of 
his conversation, that I may perhaps be pardoned, if from an 
elegant little work, as yet I believe scarcely known in England, 
I cite here, as the best comment on a text, otherwise unworthy 
of its distinguished subject, the fable I have alluded to. — 



SMIXENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. \%+ 

LE VIEUX PECHER. 

u Depuis que la muse naive, 

Qu; remit so-s mes doig sma lyre fugitive, 

De nioi, tant bien que mal, a fait un Fablier, 

Je suis pl-is que jamais, en ma saison tardive, 

Amateur des jardins, si ce n'est jardinier. 

Souvt-nt j'y passe un jour entier : 

A quoi ? Je ne sais trop, mais heureux de n'entendre 

D s bruits, ni vrais, ni faux, point de devoirs a rendre, 

Point de bavards, pour m'ennu\er, 

Point d'ceil nialin, pour m'epier, 

Et toujours des lecons a prendre; 

Lecons de langue desoiseaux, 

Et des fltrurs, et me me des iirbres, 

Je les entends ; j'entends les moindres arbrisseaux, 

J'entendi ais, je crois, j usqu'aux marbres, 

Si marbres habitaient sous mes humbles berceaux. 

Dans ce jardin, cheYi de Pales et de Flore, 

Est un antique et beau pecher, 

V \\ les frmts, qu'en naissant le Dieu du jour colore, 

T - tent Foci, l'odorat, le gout et le toucher. 

Afais ce favori de Poraone 

Vieillit : deja son front porte cette couronne, 

Q'ti marque a ses pareils I'instant du noir nocher; 

Sa feuille tombe avant l'automne, 

On voit son tronc se dess£cher, 

Et bientot la Nature, et si dure et si bonne, 

Qai des arbres. de nous, egalement ordonne, 

Lui trace le chemin du jardin au bucher. 

Pres de lui, d'une main pradente, 

Charles, mon jardinier, mit par precaution, % 

Un pecher jeune encore, mais d'une belle atfente, 

Et dont une greffe savante 

A fini I'education. 

De ce nouveau venu, le vieux pecher se fache, 

" Pourquoi," dit il, m'associer 

Un blanc-bec — un mince ecolier, 

Je ne le puis souffrir — je pretends qu'on l'arrache, 

Ou je fais Fan prochain banqueroute au fruitier I 

A ce dur propos mon bon Charles, 

Qui pi is et mieux, qu'un oiseau parle, 

Et souvent adoucit l'ennui de travailler, 

Par leplaisir de babiiler, 

Concis pour cette fois, autant qu'un Spartiate, 

Repond — " S'il faut choisir, crains que jene t'abatte, 

J'aurai de lui des biens, qu'avec toi j'ai perdus, 

II plaira par ses fruits, quand tu n'en auras plus." 

Mes chers amis, moi, qui vous fais ce conte» 
Je pretends, pour mon propre compte, 
En profiler. Toujours j'aimai les jeunes gens, 
Jc veux de pi s en plus, en fuveurde leur age, • 
Ex^ust-r leur details, accuedler leurs talents, 
E' bri>e d<-s ecemls, mais bientot an rivage 
De Forageux Neptune, ou. je les vois flottants, 

FART II. T 



13S EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

Des mains et de la voix animer leur courage. 

Aidons nos successeurs ; c'est le conseil du sage, 

Ainsi de mon Pecher quinteux, 

Je sais meitre a profii la leeon pour moi-m€me. 

Tel vieillard savant et hargneux, 

Qui me traite en jeune homme, et fait le dedaigneux, 

En profitera-t-il de meme?" 

THE OLD PEACH TREE. 

[Since the rural muse has again put into my hands my fugitive lyre, and 
made me for better and worse a fabulist, late as my season is, I am more than 
ever an amateur of gardens. I often pass there a whole day, in doing 1 know 
not what, but happy to be relieved from irksome duties, from false and rue 
reports, from chatterers that tire me, and from malicious eyes thai watch me. 
There 1 take lessons in the language of birds, of flowers, i>nd even of trees. 
I can hear even the smallest shrubs. I think I could evtn hear the marbles, if 
marbles inhabited my humble territory. 

In this garden, sacred to Pales and to Flora, is a fine ancient peach-tree, 
whose fruit, coloured by the god of day, once delighted the eye, the smell, 
and the taste. But this favourite of Pomona grew old; already i^^hibited 
symptoms of decay ; its leaves fell before autumn, its trunk dried up, and 
so'»n Nature, (at once so cruel and so good), who disposes equally of trees and 
of men, indicated the road from the garden to the wood-pile. 

Near him, the prudent hand of Charles, my gardener, had carefully planted, 
a young peach-tree, of the fairest promise, and of which a skilful graft had 
finished the education; The old peach-tree grew angry at the young stranger 
— " Wh\," said he, "must I associate with a novice — a stripling beginner — I 
cannot endure it — pull him up by the roots, or n xt year 1 will not give you a 
single peach." At ihis harsh proposal, my good Charles, who chatters more 
and better than the birds, and often beguiles his working-time, by the amuse- 
ment of talkng, wasjFor once as concise as a Spartan, and replied— '* If I must 
choose between you, you may tremble for yourself — I shall have fruit from 
him, when you can produce no more." 

My dear friends, I have related my tale, and I will endeavour myself to pro- 
fit by the moral. 1 have always loved young people, and now 1 will more than 
ever excuse their faults in favour of their age ; bring out their talents, and 
When 1 see them embarking on the stormy ocean of the world, with hands and 
voice I will animate their courage. Let us assist our successors; it is the ad- 
vice of Wisdom. 

Thus, from my whimsical peach-tree, I have drawn a lesson for myself. 
Let every learned and morose old man do the same]. 

This day at Eubonne, the first and the last of my acquaint- 
ance with Monsieur Ginguene, passed but too rapidly away. 
We were kindly pressed, and willingly promised, to renew our 
visit, and to renew it often. — Imperious circumsfanrcs, howoer, 
interfered with our wishes and our intentions. AVe saw the en- 
lightened, the excellent Ginguene no more; but we carried from 
Lis retreat impressions of human excellence, and human wisdom, 
which raised our estimation of the species to which he belonged ; 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. £3§ 

and vvp left this amiable sage with sentiments of admiration and 
regret, which would have been still more profound, had we known 
we were taking leave of him for ever.* 

Madame Ginguene, the model of devoted wives, is a woman 
of talent and considerable acquirement ; and, though plain in her 
person and dress, and simple and unpretending in her manners, 
the moment she enters into conversation she gives that impres- 
sion of mind never to be mistaken, which a sentence is sufficient 
to disclose, and a word sometimes betrays. It was impossible, 
however, to trace the gay ambassadress of Sardinia, in the 
watchful and worn-out nurse-tender of the valetudinarian hus- 
band. 

#4* ^L. *U, *\L, J*. ^V, 4P 4U vU. 

There is scarcely an era in the political transactions of 
France, for the last eight and twenty years, in which the name of 
Gregoire, bishop of Blois, has not had a place ; — while his nu- 
merous works, his « Histoire des Sectes" his <* de la Traite, de 
VEsclavage des JSToirs et des Blancs," his Discours sur la Liberie 
des Cultes" and " sur la DomesticiU" [History of the Sects, his 
Treatise on the Slavery of the Blacks and Whites, his Discourse 
on the Liberty of Worship], have made him known to Europe, 
by sentiments the most philanthropic, and by views the most 
philosophical. Of the many political tracts of the ex-bishop of 
Blois, his » De la Constitution Franyiise, de VJln 1814," is, per- 
haps, the most c« lebrated, and it is esteemed in France, by the 
unprejudiced and unbiassed, as one of the best pamphlets that 
appeared among the multitude of brochures, which issued from 
the French press, at that momentous period. 

The abbe Gregoire, a native of Luneville, was a simple cure at 
Embermesnil, when, already distinguished by his virtues, and 
his talents, he was elected deputy of the clergy of the bailliage 
of Nancy to the etats-genereux, in 1789. He was among the 
first of the ecclesiastiral order, who joined the national assem- 
bly, and took the constitutional oath, and his first effort was, to 
interest the humanity of that assembly in favour of the Jews, 
then undergoing persecution in Alsace. Preferred to the bishop- 
rick of Blois, and made president of the « Society of the Friends 
of' the Negroes" he solicited, in 1791, the rights of denization for 
people of colour. Always the active friend, the steady cham- 
pion, and able, apologist of this unhappy and oppressed race; — ■ 
desirous only that France should have a free constitution, he 
was equally strenuous in his opposition to the ancient regime, 
and the influence of the terroristes: — always preaching universal 

* Since <he commencement of this work, -I have received letters from 
France, announcing the death of this excellent and highly gifted personage. 



|40 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

toleration for religious opinions, he alone had courage to appear 
at the convention, .in defence of Christianity ; and, when he 
heard the Archbishop of Paris, at the he .d of his grand vicars, 
abjure the Catholic religion at the bar of that assembly, he start- 
ed op in undisguised horror, and had the boldness to exclaim, 
« Injame! vons osez nier votre Dieu /" [Infamous ! do you dare 
to deny your God !]* 

In 1795, the Bishop of Blois was admitted into the Council of 
Five Hundred, and was named successively, under the consulate 
and imperial regime, president of the Corps Legislatif, member 
of the Senat-Conservateur, Commandant de la Legion d'Honnenr, 
member of the Institute of France, and Count of the Empire. 
Thus loaded with honors, it might naturally be supposed he was 
among the warm advocates of the imperial power. But he was, 
invariably and inveterately, the opponent and the foe of the in- 
creasing influence and final despotism of Napoleon : — always 
am- ng the few who composed the opposition in the senate, he 
spoke with a hardihood against him, who was so rarely offended 
with impunity, which the most enthusiastic zeal in the cause of 
constitutional principles could alone have instigated : and it is 
thought that he would more than once have fallen the victim of 
his principles, had not Buonaparte respected too mm h that 
public opinion, by which he himself rose, and winch had never 
varied in favor of the revered Bishop of Blois. 

During the last scenes of Napoleon's eventful drama, Gregoire 
in utter despondency for the liberties of France, left the country, 
travelled into England and Germany, and only returned into 
France, when he believed the light of freedom again appeared 
brightening her horizofi. He was at that period among the first 
to vote the expulsion of the Napoleon family from the throne of 
France for ever. 

During the sittings of the Chambers of Representatives, in 
1815, when the wild passions of the various political factions of the 
nation were again drawn into conflict; Gregoire appeared in 
the assembly, offering his works in token of homage to its ac- 
ceptance, and demanding that the abolition of the slave trade 
should make a part of the new constitutional decrees. 

Accused of having been among the number who voted the 
death of Louis XVI., and consequently placed under the ban of 
royal aversion, the Abbe Gregoire, deprived alike of his tempo- 
ral and spiritual honours, of his legislative and literary func- 
tions, now no longer a bishop nor a peer, — his seat vacated in 

* The Committee of public instruction was ordered to present a project, 
u tendant & substituer tin cnltc raisonable an culte Catholique! /" [tending ta 
substitute a reasonable worship in place of the Catholic] 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. l$i 

the senate, his name erase! from the list of the Institute, 
this venerable prelate and beneficent man seeks safety in pro- 
found retreat, and living wholly out of the world, devotes his 
time to religious duties, to the composition of works of philan- 
thropy and utility, and to watching over the fast-declining health 
of an old lady, whom adversity has thrown on his protection, 
and whom he always mentions by the endearing name of ** ma 
mere adoptive" [my adopted mother]. 

It was with great pride and pleasure that I found the card of 
the bishop of Bhns among the names of our earliest visitors, on 
our arrival in Paris ; and it is unnecessary to add, we lost little 
time in acknowledging so highly valued and so flattering an at- 
tention. When we went to return his visit, the good bishop re- 
ceived us in his study, a retired apartment, at the rear^of his 
hotel, remote and silent as the cell of monkish retreat. The 
apartment of habitual occupation of eminent persons is always 
interesting; it seems to partake of their existence, and traces of 
their tastes and pursuits are every where sought for, to feed cu- 
riosity, or fascinate attention. As I threw my eyes round the 
apartment of the iVbbe Gregoire, it appeared to me strictly ana- 
logous to his characler and views and habits; — books of moral 
philosophy and devotion lay on every side ; a crucifix hung at 
the foot of his couch ; a slave-ship, admirably carved and con- 
strue ted by Mirabeau, lay upon a table near him ; and the mix- 
ture of the man of the world and the man of G id, of the devout 
minister and able legislator, was every where observable. We 
found him occupied in looking over papers, which he was com- 
mitting to the flames. " 1 have just," he said, "burnt a parcel 
of billets of Mirabeau, which have, more than once, made me 
smih 1 ; one, in particular, in which, after discussing some great 
political question of the day, he invites me to come off imme- 
diately, and hear him play the tabor and pipe, which he had just 
learned : adding, we should have a gay evening, as La R ; >che- 
faucalt and others were to join us." 

The character and talents of Mirabeau naturally became the' 
subject of discussion. The Bishop said, ** he had splendid ta- 
lents, and great vices ; but his talents were necessary to the 
cause in which we then had all so sanguinely embarked, and his 
vices were those of the state of society of that day in France, 
and of the class to which he peculiarly belonged." The Abbe, 
however, with this charitabh' preface to the errors he condemn- 
ed, spoke with vehemence of the immorality of Mirabeau ; but it 
was more in the language and tone of reprehension of a religious 
recluse, than in the manner, or with the experience, of a man of 
the world. The fact was, that the immorality of Mirabeau was 
neither more nor less than what constituted an " aimable roue" 



l£2 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

in the days of the Regent, or of Louis XV. His vices had nei- 
ther the systematic coldness, nor the formal developement of the 
Duke de Ri helieu's enormities ; and his morals would never 
ha\e been called in question in old France, had not his political 
principles subjected him to the hatred and aversion of those, 
who upheld its institutions, and drew their existence from its 
errors. 

The Abbe Gregoire showed us with great pride a glass case, 
filled with the literary works of negro authors; many of whom 
he had himself redeemed and brought forward. <• I look upon 
this little book-case," he observed, «• as a refutation of all that 
has been said against the intellect of blacks; that unhappy race, 
like the wild plants of some neglected soil, want only care and 
culture to bear in due time both flowers and fruit." 

Wf talked to him of a work he was then engaged in, on the 
moral education of servants. ** The French press," he said, *' is 
unwearied in issuing forth calumnies against me: I shall only 
reply to my enemies, by doing all the little good I can for my 
fellow-creatures. I have done with public life ; the few days that 
may be spared me, shall be devoted to domestic amelioration, 
and to the cause of humanity." 

From the period of this first visit, our intercourse with the 
ex-bishop of Blois was frequent. There was in his appearance, 
his manner, his very mode of expression, an originality, a some- 
thing out of the ordinary rule of character, irresistibly attractive 
to a mind something wearied by the common places of society. 
He speaks with great rapidity, as if thought came too fast for 
utterance ; and there is a freshness, a simplicity, in his man- 
ner, that mingles the eager curiosity of a recluse with the pro- 
found reflections of a philosopher; and leaves it difficult to un- 
derstand how such a character could have passed through the 
world's hands, and yet have retained the original gloss of nature 
in its first lustre. A sort of restless benevolence, always anx- 
ious to relieve or to save, to alleviate or to improve, is extreme- 
ly obvious in his conversation, as it is illustrated by his life ; and 
I found it so difficult to reconcile the profound humanity of his 
character, with his supposed vote when the life of the unfortu- 
nate Louis XVI. was at stake, that I one day ventured to touch 
on the subject : — »* / never instigated the death of any human 
being ;" was his reply. <* I voted that Louis the XVlth should 
be the first to benefit by the law, which abolished capita/ punish- 
ment; in a word — I condemned him to Kue/"* 

There has been in all ages and countries so intimate a con- 
nexion between church and state, that it is difficult to break up 

* Gregoire had long advocated the abolition of capital punishment. 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. !£§ 

the associations thus formed in the mind ; and a dignified pre- 
late talking the language of a Brutus or a Hampden, is a sole- 
cism in principles, not easily reconciled with modern modes of 
action. When Gregoiie has praised to me the freedom of the 
English constitution, as established at the revolution, and pray- 
ed devoutly for its continuance — when he spoke of the misery of 
the political and moral corruption of France, which urged on 
the revolution, with the pious horror of a minister of the reli- 
gion of peace and beneficence, I have more than once asked him, 
by what early impressions the bishop of Blois had become ani- 
mated with the spirit of a Cato or a Rtssel ?— He always an- 
swered me with the simplicity of a religious recluse, ** my guides 
have always been my heart and the scriptures; the one taught 
me to sympathise with the oppressed, and 1 found all mv ideas 
and principles of liberty in the other." 

Tne bishop of Blois, however, as he himself assured me, was 
not the only catholic prelate who had advocated the cause of li- 
berty, and drawn his arguments in its favor from the same 
source where he had sought them. " Here," he said, one morn- 
ing, taking a pamphlet from the drawer of Ids writing-desk, 
« here is a singular and interesting sermon, in favor of civil liber- 
ty, as intimately united with Christian faith; composed by citizen 
Cardinal Chi aramonti, bishop of Imola; and addressed tn the 
people of his diocese, in the Cisalpine government, in the year 
1797. Speaking, however, of the union of Christianity and civil 
liberty, I allow that he goes beyond the line of mere constitu- 
tional principles, when he observes — «< oui 9 mes chers freres 9 soyez, 
tous Chretiens, et vous serez, (Pexcellens democrates" [yes, my dear 
brethren, he all Christians and you will be excellent democrats]. 
It was impossible not to smile at the simpli< ity and gravity, with 
which this was uttered ; and I observed, « your citizen Cardi- 
nal has, I suppose, long since paid the forfeit of this imprudent 
profession of faith." — " No," replied the bishop gravely, ** the 
sentiments of Christian faith, and paternal tenderness, which 
breathe through the whole of this excellent homily (some exag- 
geration in terms and principles which belonged inevitably to 
that day of exaltation excepted,) have been carried by the ex- 
cellent bishop of Imola, from his see in Cisalpine Gaul, to the 
throne of the Christian world ; and the present surcessor of St. 
Peter is worthy of the high place he fills. The citizen Cardi- 
nal Chiaramonti is now the venerable Pope Pius VI I. " # 

* This most enrious homily is now in my possession. It has for its title- 
pa: c : — " Home lie du citoyev Cardinal Chiaramonti, Eveque D'lmofa, actueliement 
Sonve* ain Pontiffe, Pie V1L; 'id'essee <.it ttcnple de son Diocese, dans la Repub- 
liyue Cisalpine, le jour de lanaissance de Jesus Christ, I' an 1797 '-—Imola, deVim- 



144 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

The bishop of Blois, though fast verging on seventy, exhibits 
little trace of age in his appearance. His fresh am) aniinaied 
manner, his vigorous and active mind, his interesting and < liar- 
acteristir countenance and person, all seem to throw time at a 
distance, and to remain unassailable by the shoe ks of adversi- 
ty. Wholly retired from the world, devout, studious, tempe- 
rate ; many days may vet he reserved for him: — may he enjoy 
them in safety, and resign them in peace ! 

The little intercourse which necessarily subsisted between 
England and France, prior to the year 1814, has left the two 
countries reciprocally strangers to some of the most popular 

primirie de la nation, an 6 de la liberte. — R4 ' impHmee d Come, chez Charles Jin- 
ioine Ostmelli, an 8. Et d Par's, chez Adrian Ergon, Imprimeur, 1814" 

[Homily of citizen Cardinal Chiaramomi, Bishop of lmola, now Sovereign 
Pontiff, Pi; s VII- ; addressrd to the people of his diocese in the Cisalpine 
Republic, the day of the b>rth of Jesus Christ, .he year 1797 — Fro in ihe na- 
tional press — Imola, the s.xth year of liberty. — Re printed a* Con. o, ! »\ Charles 
Antony Ostintlli, year 8. And at Pans, by Adrian Ergou, Printer, 1814]. 

The following- passages are fair specimens ot the style, in which tins ser- 
mon is composed : 

" Je ne vous parlerai, ni de Sparte, ni d'Athenes Je garderai le silence sur la 
fameuse legislation de Lycurgue e. de Solon — et mime sur cette Carthage, la rwale 
de Rome JVos rejl-xions et nos souvenirs le reportent plus convenublement sur 
Vantique republ-qne Romuine Conside ez, met freres, les illustres citoyeus, dont 
elle s'honora, et les moyens par lesquels it's s\tssurerent des droits a l y admiration; 
Rupfrellerai-je le courage de Mutius dee'vole ? de Curtius? des dtux Sapions? 
de To-quatus ? .de Cumille ? et de tant d'aut>es, qui jleurirent d ces tpoque* me'- 
morables? Lews eloges, traces pur une joule d'ecrivuins, sont encore C instruction 
de la post e rite . C titan d'Utique, dont on a dU, que lu gloire le poursuivoit, d'au- 
tant plus qu'il s'ob&tinoitd la fmr ,• Cat on vous upprendra comment Rome etendit 
sa renomtnee, et reculu les limites de sa repuolique," HJc. &c. 

'.' Que la Religion Catholique soit Vobjet le plus cher de votre cceur, de votre 
piele, tie toutes vos affections- jYe croyez pus qiCelle choque la fo' me du gouverne- 
ment democratique. En y ViVant uius d votre divin Suuveur, vous pourr< z con- 
cevoir une juste esptrunce de votre sulut e'ternel ; vous pourvez, en operant votre 
bonheur temporel et cehu de vos freres, ope'rer la gloire de la rtpublique et ties au- 
torites qui la regisse/it" 

[I will not talk to you of Sparta or of Athens. I will be silent on the fa- 
mous legislation of Lycurgus and of Solon — and even on that of Carthage, the 
rival of Rome Our thoughts and our memories remind us more propel ly of 
the ancient It; man Republic Consider, my bro hers, the illustrious citizens 
whom she honoured, and the actions on which thry founded their claims to 
admiration. Recollect the courage ot Mutius Scaevota I of Curtius? of the 
two Scipios ? of Torquatus ? of Camillas ? and of s many others who flourish- 
ed in these memorable ages ? Their eulogiums traced by a crowd of writers, 
are still lessons for posterity. Cato of U ica, of whom it was said, that the 
more he fled from glory the more she pursued him ; Cto will teach you how 
Rome extended her renown beyond the boundaries other republic, 8tc.&t.&c. 

Let the Cadiolic religion be the object most dear to your hearts, your pie- 
ty, and your affections. Do not believe that it is at variance with the demo- 
cratic form of government. In living united to your divine Saviour, you may 
entertain a just hope of your eternal salvaCon ; you may, in improving your 
temporal happiness and that of your brothers, contribute to the glory of the 
republic and of the authorities which preside over it]. 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. £%$ 

l 
writers in their respective languages. Of our modern English 
poets, France knows little ; and it is a singular fact, that be- 
fore the first entry of the allies into Paris, even the works of 
Moore, Byron, and Scott, were almost unheard of in its litera- 
ry circles. Of the innumerable poets good and bad, in which 
France abounds, England even still remains ignorant, with a 
very few exceptions. — Even the superior effusions of Parney,* 
Le Gouve,f Berchoux,^ Le Brun,§ and Chenier,jj are but lit- 

* Parny, author of <l Eloges d Eleonore" " Les Guerres des Dieux" "La 
Scandinave" [Eulogiums on Eleonora — The wars of the Gods— Scandinavia], 
&c. &c. &c. Parny was protected and pensioned by Napoleon. 

f Le Gouve, author of " La Merite des Femmes" [The Merit of Women], 
&c. &c &c. 

+ Berchoux, author of •' La Danse, ou les Dieux de VOpira" [Dancing", or 
the Gods of the Opera]; " La Gastronomie ,•" "Poesies Fugitives „•" " Poeme 
sur Voltaire;" &c. &c. M- Berchoux is now living at his seat, in Auvergne. 

§ Le Brun, author of four volumes of odes, epigrams, epistles, and elegies. 
His odes rank in France with those of J. B. Rousseau and Malherbes. He is, 
however, always spoken of by French critics, as being '* aimable, spirituel t 
mais mechant" [agreeable, witty, but wicked]- Of his claims to the latter 
epithet, his little impromptu, on the celebrated Fanni Beauharnois, (grandmo- 
ther to the ex-queen of Holland,) is a proof. 

Egle belle et poete, a deux petits travers, 
Eile fait son visage — et ne fait pas ses vers" 
[Egle, a beauty and a poetess, has two little faults — she makes her face, and 
she does not make her verses]. 

|j Chenier established his celebrity, by his play of Charles IX., given in 
1789. The emotion which this play excited, was one of the earliest, but most 
decided presages which ushered in the revolution- Chenier took an active 
part in every stage of that event ; and while he successively obtained high and 
important offices under the various governments, his poetical works, his 
" Henry VIW «• La Mort de Calas" [The Death of Calas], " Caius Gracchus*' 
•* Timolton" and " Fenelon" gave him for a time, the reputation of being the 
first tragic poet of the nation. It is, however, by his " Ode to Voltaire" that 
he is now best known and most admired. This splendid composition lost him 
the favour of Napoleon ; and he died in disgrace, after having largely bene- 
fited by the bounty and countenance of the emperor. He had been made an 
officer of the legion of honour, and " Inspecthtr-general des e'tudes" [Inspec- 
tor-general of studies]. His last works were all directed against ihe despo- 
tism of the ruling authority, and he neither spared the monarch nor his minis- 
ters. Of the latter assertion, the following stanza is a proof. 

u Epigramme sur le Prince de T . 

" Roguette, dans son terns — Tally *** dans le notre, 

Furent tous deux, prelats d'Autun; 

Tartuffe est l'image de Pun ; 
Ah ! si Moliere avait vu l'autre ! '.'* 

[Epigram on Prince de T 

Roquette, in his time— Talleyrand in ours, were both bishops of Autun ; 
Tartuffe is the image of the one ; Ah '. if Moliere had seen the other]. 
PART II. U 



446 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

• 

tie read ; while the works of Kaynouard** Lormian.f Grand- 
maison4 Du Menil, D * Paty, Mad. Dutrenoy, Fontanes^ Ar- 
mud t, || Michaud, and an host of others, are scarcely known even 
by name. 

Among the dramatic poets who have sprung up in France 
since the revolution, the Comte Le Merrier Jakes a very deci- 
ded lead, both by the quantity and the quality of his produc- 
tions. Le Merrier, the son of the secretaire des commandemens 
of the Duke de Penthievre, the favourite and protege of the 
Princess de Laniballe, (daughter to the Due de Richelieu,) was 
born and reared at the court, and yet distinguished himself as 
among the earliest and most evident advocates of the revolution. 
Loaded successively with republican honours, and imperial fa- 
vour, Mons. Le Merrier continued to cultivate the favour of the 
muses with a great variety of success. At the early age of six- 
teen he produced his « Meleagere" which obtained six repre- 
sentations ; and which has since been followed, at various epochs, 
by his •' Lovelace Franqais ;" — « Scarmatado;" — " Tartuffe Re- 
volutionnaire ;"— »* Levite d'Ephraim ;" — «• Agamemnon" which 
obtained the most unbounded success; «* Pinto," a comedy, in 
five acts; «< Ophis" an Egyptian story ; ** Plaute;" — *• Chris- 
tophe-Columb ;" — «« Baudouin 9 Empereur de Constantinople;" — 

* M. Raynouard, originally an avocat [a lawyer] in Provence, but sufficient- 
ly independent in his circumsiances, to perm, t hs giving up his profession, 
has long retired to the enjoyment of literary pursuits His fine tragedy of 
• the Templars was crowned with the most complete success. His " Edits de 
Elois" represented in 1814, was, 1 believe, less fortunate. He has also p b- 
lisht-d some fugitive pieces, and a poem, culled, " Socrate au Temple tTAii- 
glaureV 

■f The " Omasis en Egypte" of M. Lormain, has obtained distinction for 
the extreme beauty of the style His odes on the battles of Buonaparte are 
now less popular than they oner were His translation of the ''Jerusalem" 
and the " Aminta" are said to have considerable merit. He has also imitated 
" Young & Night Thoughts" in his " Veilles Po'e'tiques,' with success 

$ M. Grandmaison is author of the " Amours Epiques" " P/ullipe Auguste" 
and m.uy other poetical effusions. M. G. accompanied Buonaparte into Egypt. 

§ M. de Fontanes, before the revolution, p> bl shed a translation of I'ope's 
Essay on Man, and his " Verger" — He wrote, during the revolution, for vari- 
ous journals, and composed and pronounced a funeral eloge on Washington, in 
the Temple of Mars! M- de Fontanes was distinguished h\ Buonaparte, after 
his elevation to the imperial throne, who created him successively Count of 
the Empire, Commandant of the Legion of Honour, and Grand Master of the 
In p. rial University. The king has created M. de Fontanes, Peer of France, 
and Officer of the Legion of Honour- 

f| M Arnault, the author of the tragedies " Metritis & Minterne" " Lucrece" 
«' Cincinnatus" &c- kc. ; was among the literary men of France, who were 
most distinguished by Napoleon. Arnault accompanied him into Eg\pt, and 
both under the consulate and imperial government, held many high offices of 
trust and emolument. In 1815, he was included in the ordonnance oi the 
24th of July, and ordered to quit Fans within three days, and to re ire to the 
place of exile indicated by the minister of police. He is still in banishment. 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. £4# 

" Camille;" — « Philippe Auguste ;" — " St. Louis, en Egypte ;" 
— •• Clovis;"—-** Lefaux bon Homme," — and « Charlemagne." 

M. Le Merrier has relieved his dramatic productions with 
some pieces of lighter poetry; and among these fugitive works, 
" Les ages Franqais," and " VHomme Renouvelle," [The French 
ag«s, ami The Man Renewed], have, I believe, obtained popu- 
larity. His *« Mantiade." which yet remains to be finished, and 
whirl) has only been partly published, and partly read in society, 
calls for a more distinguished notice, as being more out .of the 
beaten track of ordinary composition, than either his tragedies or 
lyric poems. 

While Monsieur Chateaubriand has endeavoured to prove, and 
to illustrate, in his prose poem of " Les Martyrs" that the 
Christian mythology is more favourable « au jeu des passions" 
[to the play of the passions], (to use his own words) and to the 
developement of character in the epopee [epir poem], than the 
pagan theogony, and that saints and martyrs are more inter- 
esting personages, than gods and heroes ; — M. Le Mercier has 
substituted, in his « Mantiade" physical and geometrical divi- 
nities, for those of the Pantheon, and equally neglecting ** ar- 
mies of martyrs ," and legions of saints, with the presiding dei- 
ties of Olympus and Parnassus, he has plunged at once into new 
systems of poetical machinery, and rests his claims to poetiral 
originality, upon seeking his heroes and heroines in the laws of 
gravitation and repulsion, and upon following the system of 
Newton, and drawing his personages from « les forces virtuelles 
du mande" [the virtual powers of the world]. Thus, leaving far 
behind the intrigues of the plants, and the loves of the triangles, 
M. Le Mercier introduces at once upon the scene his centripetal 
and centrifugal forces, under the names of Barythee and Probal- 
lane, as the leading personages of his epic;— -while Curgire, (the 
curvilinear motion) Pyrophese, (caloric) Sulphydre, (brimstone) 
Electrone (electricity) assist in carrying on the main plot, and 
produce many interesting episodes. The poles, with some other 
mute personages, seem merely called in as figurantes, to fill up 
the pauses of the deeper interest, and to perform a subordinate 
part in this splendid melo-drame of the elements. 

The author himself assures his reader, that even the episodes 
afforded by the loves and jealousies of the lady Electricity and 
Magnesiene, (the load-stone) and Sider, (the iron) are not less 
terrible and gracious, or sublime or beautiful — «• que les in- 
trigue sfabuleuses des Dienx et des Deeses de VOlympe" [than the 
fabulous intrigues of the Gods and Goddesses of Olympus]— 
while the. caprices of the nymph Sulphydre, *« etendue snr une 
coucht defer avec Pyrotone" [extended on a couch of iron with 
Pyrotone], become the cause of those volcanic shocks, which 



14S eminent and literary characters. 

finally overwhelm the island Mantis, the fancied scene of the 
main action of the poem. Her sighs, indeed, breathe brimstone; 
her vows are thunder; and her curtain-lecture to the hen-perk- 
ed Pyrotone, produces a volcano. The tragical ardors, how- 
ever, of these violent personages are relieved by the quarrels of 
Barythee and Proballane; while Psijcolee, or universal intelligence, 
a sort of Kitty Pry, or •< Norah in white dimity," reconciles all 
parties, and finally makes up the little disputes between these 
choleric young men, the centripetal and centrifugal forces, though 
the Sun himself is described as creeping out of the way of their 
broils, resolved never more to return to his old track, merely 
that he may avoid so disagreeable a neighbourhood. A little** 
despotism on the part of Barythee, and a little rebellion on that 
of Proballane, seem to be the leading cause of their dispute — 

" Un jour que Barythee au centre, son empire, 

Fier de son ascendant, sur tout ce qw'il attire, 

Accusau Proballane> esclave de sa cour, 

De gemir, en guidant les spheres a I'entour, 

Proballane en son vol, qui traverse I'espace, 

Las d'etre contenu dans les circles, qu'il trace," &c. 8cc. 
[One day, when Barythee was in the centre of his empire, proud of his in- 
fluence on all th A he attracts, he accused his slave Proballane of groaning 
while he guided the spheres around, Proballane in his flight which traverses 
spaces weary of being held in the circles, &c- &c] 

M. Le Mercier opens this extraordinary and very original 
poem with the following lines : 

" Au-dessus des humains existent des Gdnies, 
Non encore Celebris dans les Theog^nies- 
Etres, qui sous Paspect d'allegoriques traits, 
Offrent de l'univers les prinopes secrets; 
Nouveaux Dieux, que le tems me revele et me nomme, 
Pour mieux etre entendus par la raison de l'homme, 
Qui saisit mieux l'objet, que l'on presente a ses sens, 
Que Vabstrait ide'al, dont les corps sont absens." &c. 8cc. &c- 
[Above the human race exist the Genii, not yet celebrated in theTheoge 
fiies ; beings who, under an allegorical aspect, preside over the secret princi- 
ples of the world- New deities* which time reveals and names to me, to be 
better understood by the reason of man, which seizes the object better when 
presented to his senses, than an ideal abstract, of which the body is absent, 

Some detached pieces only of the " Mantiade" had been pub- 
lished, during my residence in Paris; hut while it remains with 
the French public to decide on the merits of this new and ec- 
centric effusion of a poet, who has already obtained its suffrages 
upon other occasions, it is permitted me to bear testimony to 
the amiable manners, and peculiarly interesting conversation of 
the man. I had the pleasure of being introduced to M. Le Mcr- 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 149 

cier a few nights after the first representation of his " Charle- 
magne," and when the town was yet full of its undecided failure 
or success. He spoke of it with a sort of unaffected indiffer- 
ence that was extremely amusing. " I have delivered it up/' 
he said, " to the political factions of the day, and they will de- 
cide its fate, independent of its merits or its faults : — I read it 
several times to Napoleon, he approved of it, and he was no bad 
judge." 

I asked him, why he had not brought it forward, during. the 
time of the late Emperor? — "Because," replied M. Le Mer- 
rier, " he would have applied the character of Charlemagne to 
himself; and the whole would have had the "air of th^ most 
consummate flattery. Now, indeed, no such personal allusion 
can be made." 

M. Le Merrier was an early friend of Buonaparte's, and 
though his constitutional principles, bordering on republicanism, 
rendered him adverse to the measures of the imperial despotism, 
it has been always understood, that he was attached to his per- 
son. Of Buonaparte's style of conversation, he observed to me, 
that when lie was obliged to make conversation it was neither 
marked by sallies, nor originality ; that to talk, for talking sake, 
was to him the most insupportable ennui. But when something 
struck with force on his imagination, when some latent passion 
was unexpectedly touched on, some chord of favourite associa- 
tion accidentally awakened, then, all force, energy, and origi- 
nality ; there was something irresistibly fascinating in every- 
thing he uttered.* He had a powerful imagination, and of a 
romantic cast ; he was fond of heroic poetry, and particularly 

* I heard it frequently said in France, by those who knew Buonaparte 
through all the strange vicissitudes of his most checquered life, that he was 
" un charmant causeur" [a charming talker], as they expressed it; and ex- 
tremely interesting and amusing in intimate and familiar conversation. " I 
have often written under his dictation," (said a man of great celebrity and 
talent to me,) "I have frequently been startled by his idiom and turn of 
phrase, and even ventured to tell him that it xvasnot French. But when I at- 
tempted to change or improve, I found I only enfeebled ; and that his bad 
French -was powerful language. He dicta ed with great rapidity; wrote fre- 
quently for the journals ; and was the author of the greater part of his own 
manifestoes and bulletins to the army. His passion for Ossian continued una- 
bated from his boyhood- He was fond of novels, and read them frequently; 
but (said my informant) " d la devobie" [in secret]- He was extremely fear- 
ful " de se donner un ridicule" [of giving cause for ridicule]. One Ray, in his 
private apartments, he was talking on the subject of air-balloons. One of his 
courtiers observed, that he had heard, that the fearless spirit of the emperor, 
«ven in childhood, had led him to ascend in an air-balloon Napoleon saw- 
something ludicrous in this anecdote, which he declared was wholly unfound- 
ed- •«! appeal to you," (he said with great natvete [simplicity], turning t* 
tbe Baron de ****, who was present,) "ivhether that is in my -wai>." 



£00 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

fond of historical tragedy, a subject on which he spoke well, and 
loved to speak much. 

The strenuous favourer of the revolution, and the personal 
friend of Buonaparte, it may be supposed M. Le Merrier finds 
it most suitable to the actual position of things to live, if not in 
retirement, at least less in the world, than his rank, fortune and 
reputation might entitle him to do. I found, however, that he 
had admirers and friends, even among the most determined Bour- 
bonists, and my first knowledge of his works and most amiable 
character, was obtained from a devoted ultra-royaliste, who al- 
ways spoke of him with affection and admiration ; and who 
lamented his principles, as errors of judgment, which held no 
influence over his heart and feelings, «« which," said our mutual 
friend, « are always in the right." 

While Monsieur Le Merrier gives up his talents to the pursuit 
and illustration of the loves of the elements, and produces moral 
combinations from physical facts, Volney, the sublime Volney, 
withdraws his high born genius from its elevated career, and 
descends from the grand and philosophical mood, which led his 
spirit to hover over the *« Ruins of Empires" to the cold, tame 
pursuit of chronological calculation ; — and he, whose intellect, 
noble in its observation, and just, even when fanciful in its infe- 
rences, once drew a political moral from fallen columns, and 
taught lessons from stones, now confines his powers to arithmeti- 
cal conclusions, and geometrical results. 

Some friends of the Comte de Volney ronfirmed to me, what 
public report had already circulated, that he was deeply engaged 
in a very recondite and singular work, "VHistoire de la Chrono- 
logie" undertaken in a very philosophical, and from some pas- 
sages I heard cited, what *vill be deemed, a xqvy sceptical mood. 
It is said, that this celebrated person attempts, by most ingenious 
inductions, to prove that the history of Moses is a compilation 
of astronomical facts: that Abraham was a brilliant constella- 
tion, and Moses himself Bacchus, or the sun. Thus to disturb 
the genealogical tree of patriarchal nobility, though it be to 
« translate it to the skies" is a most perilous and venturous un- 
dertaking; — even, with all the sanction of M. VolmVs acknow- 
ledged genius, and high reputation, it will require testimonies, 
" strong as truths of hnly writ," and backed by the corrobora- 
ting proofs of antediluvian rabbins, and pre-adamite professors, 
to obtain, for this "new reading" a patient hearing from a 
worid, who, at the present moment, seems but little inclined to 
countenance innovation, on subjects of far less influence and 
importance. 

The Comte de Volney was already celebrated by his travels 
into Egypt and Syria, when he was elected, in 1789, deputy of 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. £5£ 

the tiers-etat [third estate] of Anjou to the etats -generalise [states- 
general], ami distinguished himself by the boldness of his elo- 
quence, in favour of the rights of the people; and on the confis- 
cation of the estates of the church, for the benefit of the nation. 
Retiring before the sanguinary conflicts of the reign of terrorism, 
he was received by General Washington, in the United States, 
with that high distinction due to his talents, his character, and 
reputation ; and when the hurricane of an overwhelming demo- 
cracy was exhausted, and the friends of rational liberty again 
hope : to range themselves under her long trampled banner, Vol- 
ney returned to France, was elected member of the conservative 
senate; alter having been placed among the candidates for 
counsellor of state, and even of consul. He sat in the senate, 
during the whole of the imperial reign, and in 1814, voted 
the expulsion of Napoleon Buonaparte from the throne of 
France. 

Since that period, he has, like almost all the genius of the 
country, retired from the scene of public life, and rarely visited 
Paris, during my residence in that capital. — Living at his seat, 
which he has recently adorned with a young and amiable wife, 
he leaves political conflicts 

'* To mean ambition, and the pride of Kings," 

and in domestic enjoyment, and philosophical seclusion, it may 
be hoped, finds that happiness which the « world can neither 
give nor take away." 

Poetry and diplomacy form a rare and strange union in the 
pursuits of the same mind ; and he, who early receives his first 
instructions from a Muse, may scarcely be supposed qualified 
to act under the influence of a cabinet. There have been, how- 
ever, instances in the history of modern politics, in which nego- 
tiations have been effected by the charm of metre, and treaties 
bound in poetic wreaths;* — and the most fortunate negotiation 
which France ever made with Russia, was supposed to have 
been effected, while the imperial Catherine listened to the lyre 
of Segur. 

The Comte de Segur, one of the ablest ministers of royal 
France, and one of the most elegant poets of the revolutionary 



* From among- the number, I have great pride in instancing- my own dis- 
tinguished countryman, Lord Viscount Strangford, late ambassador at the 
Brazils, and the elegant translator of Camoens. The world has already stamp- 
ed his poetical version of the Portuguese bard, with its suffrages. But the 
friends of Lord Strangford only are aware, how much the original composi- 
tions of his maturer genius surpass the happy imitations and g-lo wing effusions 
of his juvenile talents. 



15% EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

regime ; the author of « La Politique de tous les Cabinets dc 
V Europe; 99 — of *<Z,e Theatre de I 9 Hermitage ;**-.*« La Chaumiere; 99 
— " La Solitude ;" [The Policy of all the Cahinets of Europe ; — 
of the Theatre of the Hermitage — The Cottage— Solitude]-— and 
a hundred pretty vaudevilles, and sonnets, is of high descent and 
noble birth. As the eldest son of the Marquis de Segur, mare- 
chal de France, the road to honours lay broadly open to him ; 
and. in 1786, he was sent ambassador to Russia, and effected a 
treaty of commerce, which assured to France all those advan- 
tages, which had till then been exclusively enjoyed by England. 
The happy issue of his diplomatic arrangements was in part 
attributed to the pleasure, which the Empress received from his 
conversation, and the amusement she derived from his poetical 
effusions. Talents with that great legislator had always their 
weight in the cabinet, as in the salon ; nor had the political sys- 
tems of Europe then proscribed genius and ability, as unfavour- 
able to the views and wisdom of government; views which are 
now deemed most effectually forwarded by plodding dulness, 
blundering pretension, and all-pervading, overwhelming and 
shameless corruption. 

In 1789, the Comte de Segur was named deputy from the no- 
blesse of Paris to the etats-generaux [states-general]. In 1791, 
he was sent ambassador from the republic of France to Pope 
Pius VI. ; who, less favourable to republicanism than his suc- 
cessor, Pope Pius VII. refused to receive him. Ambassador to 
the court of Berlin, in 1792, he was obliged to remain abroad 
during the whole of the reign of terrorism, and to consult his 
safety, hy a voluntary exile from a country, delivered up to 
outrage and spoliation. To those who are ready, from ignorance 
or prejudice, to confound all the yjirious and strongly opposed 
periods of the revolution, it may be here worth observing, that 
no two* factions in the history of revolutionary conflicts, stand 
more strongly opposed, than the constitutionalists of 1789, and 
the, democrats who engrossed the scene of action in succeeding 
periods. It was against the friends and advocates of rational 
liberty, that the reign of terrorism fulminated its thunders; and 
the patriots of France pursued by death, or driven into exile, 
bled on the scaffold, lay chained in the dungeon, or wore out 
existence in the miseries of want and exile. 

After the fall of the Robespierrian party, and on the return of 
the Comte de Segur to France, he was elected deputy of the 
corps legislatif. He voted the consulship for life to Buonaparte, 
and supported this measure as the most efficacious means of con- 
solidating the new institutions. Called to the council of state, 
and elected member of the National Institute, he was at the 
same time presented with the charge of Grand Master of the 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. ^flg 

Ceremonies of France, and decorated with the cordon rouge [red 
riband]. 

When called upon to defend the project of laws presented by 
the council of state, before the corps It gislatif, he exhibited talents 
as brilliant, as the erudition which accompanied them was pro- 
found and extraordinary ; and upon these occasions, as upon all 
others, he manifested the most devoted attachment to the person 
of the emperor, and the interests of his family. His acceptance 
of a peerage under the revived order of things, on the restoration 
of the Bourbons, and his resuming, by imperial command, his 
high court and legislative functions, during the trying probation 
of the hundred days, compromised him in the ordinances of the 
king, in 1815 ; and stript of all his dignities, living in profound 
seclusion, no longer peer, statesman, deputy, nor grand master, 
Monsieur de Segur is now only one of the most amiable men and 
charming poets of France, and most probably consoles himself 
for the loss of all w r orldly honours and court distinction, by that 
philosophy and love of retirement, which he so pleasantly preach- 
ed in the days of his brightest prosperity. 

B D'un monde, qui m'avait s£duit, 

Je connais l'imposture ; 
Mon coeur e"clairant mon esprit, 

Me rende a la nature- 
Partout on voit tant de fureur, 

Et tant d'ingratitude, 
Qu'on ne trouve plus de bonheur, 
Que dans la solitude." 

Poetne de la Solitude- 
[I know the falsehood of the world which once seduced me ; my heart en- 
lightening- my mind restores me to nature. There is every where so much 
violence and so much ingratitude, that happiness is to be found only in soli- 
tude]. 

I had the pleasure of living much in a delightful circle, to 
whose attractions the Comte de Segur contributed, by talents of 
conversation peculiarly adapted to the elegant enjoyments of re- 
fined society, and by graces of manner, which almost every court 
in Europe had contributed to finish and to form. 

The glory of Egypt had sunk, before the more approximate 
and dazzling splendour of Greece. . The remoteness both of 
time and place had combined to throw a veil over her moulder* 
ing greatness, and mysterious records ; and, like her own lsis, 
she stood dark and impenetrable, shrouded in the mystic drapery 
which ages had let fall upon her gigantic wonders. Ambition, 
that admits no impossibility ; glory, that sees no obstacle, at 
length remembered this grand, neglected sanctuary of profound 

fart n. x 

4 



|£4< EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

antiquity, and led the way to new and daring enterprise. The 
military standards of France were planted on the shores of the 
Nile, her banners waved amidst the pyramids of Cheops. 
Science, too, fearless, ardent, and enthusiastic, rushed on scenes 
so favourable to her high pursuits, and boldly followed in the 
track, which force had cleared before her. Warriors and philo- 
sophers, the studious and the brave, went forth together ; and 
the professors of arms and arts, united in danger and in gfory, 
alike trod the burning deserts of the Thebaide, and penetrated 
the dark catacombs of Lycopolis. 

Foremost in the vanguard of talent, which accompanied Buo- 
naparte into Egypt, appeared M. Denon. A mere volunteer in 
this grand but romantic enterprise, his visit to Egypt was pure- 
ly governed by that enthusiasm for the arts, by that insatiate 
and learned curiosity, which from his boyhood had led him to 
invoke the manes of past ages, and to dispute with time the 
spoils, that should belong to eternity. 

The pilgrimage of Denon to Egypt was planned in a mo- 
ment, as carelessly and as gaily, as if it had been a party to the 
opera. The learned and ingenious men, who were attached to 
the general in chief of the Egyptian expedition, for the service 
of science and the arts, had already left Paris for their embarka- 
tion, and it was but a few days before the departure of the fleet, 
that at the fire-side of Madame Buonaparte's dressing-room, it 
was suddenly proposed to Denon, and as suddenly agreed upon* 
that he should accompany the general. " Un mot du heros qui 
commandoit V expedition* decida mon depart" [A word from the 
hero who commanded the expedition decided my departure], — 
says the author of the " Voyage en Egijpte." And the only sti- 
pulation which marked an arrangement, by which the world -has 
been since so greatly benefited, was, that M. Denon should be 
at perfect liberty ; — master of his time, — and director of his own 
pursuits. 

The monuments of Upper Egypt were the principal objects of 
his arduous enterprise, and the enthusiasm with which he beheld 
the ruins of Hermopolis, of Denderah, and of Thebes, he has 
painted in all the glow of poetic colouring, with all the interest of 
sincerity and truth. While the extraordinary chief of this ex- 
traordinary expedition was taking a city, this ardent worship- 
per of the arts was taking a ruin : entrenched before Thebes, or 
designing Apollinopolis, he waged single and successful war 
against the barbarous oblivion, which hung over the precious 
relics of antiquity ; and, leaving the subjugation of the fierce 
Mamelukes to meaner ambition, contented himself with nothing 
Jess, than becoming master of the palace of the Ptolemies, and 
ihc treasures of Sesostris. Monsieur Denon, bred in courts, and 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS, 455 

reared in the luxury of polished society; yet opposing a delicate 
constitution and habits of refinement, to the hardships of a peril- 
ous expedition; wandering in deserts, plunging into catacombs; 
neither stunned hy the tumult of arms, nor awed by the silence 
of the tomb ; gay, patient, and persevering, presents a fair but 
splendid epitome of the force and elasticity of the genuine French 
temperament. 

The results of this interesting voyage have long been before 
the world, and are stampt with its approbation. And though 
other antiquarians, after a more protracted research, may per- 
haps accumulate a greater mass of observations, and more high- 
ly finish, a tele reposee [with a head at rest], what Monsieur De- 
non has slightly but boldly touched, " tantot a toutes voiles, tan- 
tot d toutes j amies" [sometimes with all his sails, sometimes with 
all his legs], as he has himself playfully expressed it, yet the an- 
nals of literature and the arts will rarely produce a work of 
such magnitude as his Egypt, executed by an individual who in 
instructing, never fails to amuse; and whose grace of style robes 
the mystic forms of remote antiquity, and long entombed art, in 
the airy drapery, which wit and fancy reserve for the fictions of 
their own lightest and most splendid creations. 

Monsieur Denon, a gentilhomme nS [a gentleman born], had 
the honour of sharing the court dignities of Voltaire, and while 
almost yet a boy, was made gentilhomme ordinaire du Koi, by 
Louis XV. A talent peculiarly French, and eminently M. De- 
non's, is said to have procured him this distinction.— «At an ear- 
ly age, and but recently arrived from his province, he had alrea- 
dy obtained reputation in Paris, as a charming raconteur [rela- 
ter]; and he was one in a circle at Versailles, when a courtier, 
more devoted than amusing, was endeavouring to entertain the 
King with a good story ill told ; when his majesty, suddenly 
turning to young Denon, exclaimed : — "Allans, Denon, recontez- 
moi cela" [Come, Denon, relate that to me]. 

The indelicacy of the command almost annihilated the power 
of obedience; and it was with difficulty and hesitation that the 
young raconteur got through a task, that might have p*ut the 
effrontery of a Grammont to the test More successful, how- 
ever, upon less trying occasions, Denon become the rival of 
Scheherazade, and his thousand and one stories led the way to 
royal favour, and diplomatic promotions. He soon carried to 
other courts the talents, which had delighted his own : — as secre- 
tary to the Russian embassy, he became known to and particu- 
larly distinguished by the Grand Duke Paul, who for some time 
corresponded with him, a la derobce [in secret]. He had fre- 
quent opportunities of observing the magnificent Catherine, 
and lived in habits of great intimacy with Diderot, who was 
then making the charm of all the first circles of Petersburgh. 



156 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

On Ins return from Russia, on the death of Louis XV. he 
paid a visit to Voltaire, and drew an admirable picture of the 
patriarch of Ferney, with all the little localities of his bfd side 
scenery, equally characteristic of the original and the artist. 
<* Catherine the great," said Monsieur Denon, talking to me of 
this visit, ** was the subject of eternal disputation between us. 
He sp^ke of her, as he had described her; — /, as I had seen her; 
—and, when I admitted that she was a woman of great views 
and distinguished manners, Voltaire would never s iffer me to 
add, that her mind was coarse, and her heart unfeeling." 

M. Denon was retained in his situation of gentiihomme ordi- 
nate, by Louis XVI. and was intrusted by that unfortunate mo- 
narch with a secret mission to Switzerland. But mystery and 
Switzerland were willingly exchanged, by the frankest of all 
diplomatists, for Italy and the arts ; and, when sent as charge 
d'affaires to Naples, and other Italian courts, his long residence 
in those classic regions called forth all the latent talents of his 
character, which the circumstances of his life had hitherto but 
little favoured. 

Monsieur Denon was still resident in Italy, in his diplomatic 
capacity, when the revolution broke out in France. Deprived 
by that event of his patrimonial possessions, his talents, which 
had formed the recreation from official labours, became an 
honourable source of existence. The diplomatic artist retired 
to Venice ; and with that cheerful philosophy, which results from 
energy of mind, and gaiety of temperament, and which rises su- 
perior to the adversity it sustains, he applied himself with such 
success to the graphic arts, that his engravings were considered 
as approaching closely to the excellence of Rrmbrandt's,* and 
brought a price proportioned to their value. It was at this pe- 
riod, that the genius and laborious study of Denon laid the basis 
of that brilliant reputation, which, in a future day, subjected the 
arts and genius of ages to his controul, as directeur-general of the 
Musee Franqais [French Museum.] 

When the law of proscription was fulminated against emi- 
grants, M. Denon returned to France in the midst of the reign 
of terror; — his habits of life did not permit him to take up arms 
in any cause ;f his feelings and principles revolted from the san- 
guinary spirit, which had usurped the government of his coun- 
try. Before suspicion had time to light on his character; before 
the sensibility which made him shudder at the horrors he wit- 
nessed, had subjected his conduct to enquiry, his reputation as 

* Sir W. Hamilton, out of badinage [a joke], actually passed one of M. 
Denon's pieces for an unique of Kembrandt's, and obtained a high price for it 
from some collector. 

t He was, however, personally opposed to Buonaparte, in the affair of the 

sections' 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. ±5J 

aa artist became his shield of protection. He was sought for to 
delineate the transactions of the times, and the blood-stained 
fastes [pageants, public shows] of the ruling democracy. But ere 
his pencil had immortalised a period, which should be for ever 
blotted from the history of the nation, the death of Robespierre 
released him from his engagements. 

It was some time after that memorable event, one evening, at 
a ball at Monsieur de Talleyrand's, a young officer endea- 
vouring to procure some lemonade, received it at the hands of 
Monsieur Denon. This little courtesy brought on a conversa- 
tion, which was the basis of a friendship, indestructible by time, 
or changed by inequality of rank and remoteness of situation, 
by the exaltation of the most splendid prosperity, or the shocks 
of the deepest adversity. The young officer was — General 
Buonaparte. 

The friendships formed by Buonaparte, were never relin- 
quished by the Emperor; — and, among the honours and emolu- 
ments heaped on M. Denon, by his imperial friend, he was made 
a Baron of the Empire, officer of the legion of honour, member 
of the Institute, and director general of the Musee des Arts, 
[Museum of the Arts], Of the latter high situation he sent in 
his resignation to the King, on the second restoration ; — and 
now vainly courts that retirement and seclusion, which neither 
his character, rank, or reputation permit him to enjoy. His 
house is one of the classic reposoirs, where the taste and talent 
of foreign nations pause, in their enlightened pilgrimage to the 
shrines of genius, to oflfcr their tribute of admiration and re- 
spect. It is the little Loretto of the arts! and the high priest fre- 
quently supersedes the divinities, at whose altars he presides. 

If France were to send some favourable specimens of her na- 
tional character into other countries, she might choose Denon 
as one of its representatives. For never was its union of gaiety 
and sensibility more happily illustrated, or its power over the 
shocks of time and accident more delightfully exhibited. Oh ! 
where may that blessed charm be sought, which can thus fling 
over the pensive evening of life the sunny brightness of its 
morning! nhich nourishes the heart's young warmth, through 
the successive lustres of passing years! feeds the unwasted spi- 
rits to their last flash, and seems extinguishable only by that 
power, which stills the vital throb, and quenches the ethereal 
flame together !* 

* Monsieur Denon, in every sense, owes much to nature ; and seems to have 
been " ne poiir tons le3 arts'" [born for the arts]. He was one day talking- on 
some subject of natural history to my husband, and describing- his efforts to 
tame a crocodde. Some artists came in, he was immediately plunged into a 
discussion on painting- and antiquities; and talked alternately, in French and 



158 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

The talent, which charmed a monarch, and raised a young 
provincial gentleman to situations of high responsibility and trust, 
still exists in ail its full perfection, and few days passed over my 
head at Paris, in which I had not an opportunity of repeating 
the command of Louis the Fifteenth, — « allons 9 racontez-moi cela" 
[come, relate that to me.] — If obeyed with less deference, I was 
at least as promptly gratified and equally delighted. That story 
must indeed be cold and tiresome, which would fail to fascinate 
attention, when related by Denon ; and « trifles light as air," 
become tales of poignant interest, when he undertakes to repeat 
them. I have now fresh in my memory the mornings and the 
evenings passed at his fire-side, in these causeries, which the 
French know only how to support without languor or satiety ; 
and in duller regions, in a less mercurial society, those evenings 
and those mornings will often recur to the mind, and supersede, 
by their delightful vision, the insipidities and common places 
necessarily endured, though never tolerated. 

If modern France could boast a catalogue of noble authors, 
the illustrious name of Levis would stand high on the list, and 
take its station among the La Rochefoucaults and the St. Simeons 
of other times. 

The Duke de Levis is grandson to the Marechal Due de 
Levis, and son to the unfortunate grand Bailli de Senlis, whose 
devotion to the Bourbon cause led him before the frightful tribu- 
nal of terror, in 1794. On the death of his father, who was 
brought to the guillotine, the young Duke fled from the political 
troubles of France, and sought safety and asylum in England. 
His funeral t> ration on Louis the Sixteenth, and Marie Antoi- 
nette, was published in London, and was followed by many lite- 
rary and political tracts. The Duke de Levis was among the 
many of the ancient noblesse, who availed themselves of Napo- 
leon's permission to return to France, and he continued to write 
and to publish, under the imperial rule, with the same freedom, 
that he had done under the protection of a foreign government. 
Since the return of the Bourbons, the Duke de Levis has shared 
in the honours and emoluments distributed by royal favour; and 
he holds a distinguished place in the establishment of the Du- 

Italian. When we were alone, I asked him the secret of his acquirements ; — 
whether he had not been very studious in his youth ? He replied carelessly, 
•' Tout an contraire ; je n*ai jamais rien eiudie, parceque cela m\t ton jours en- 
nuye ; j'ai beaucoup observe", parceque cela m'amusait Ceux qui en savant pins 
que moi me conseillent, ce qui fait que ma vie a etc" remplie, et que fai beaucoup 
joui" [Qiite the contrary; I never studied, because that always tired me; I 
observed a great deal, for that amused me- Those who were more learned 
than myself, advised me to do so ; therefore my life has been always filled up, 
and I have had much enjoyment]. 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. |5<J 

chesse de Berri. Among his most recent works are his « Con~ 
siderations Morales sur les Finances ;" and among those which 
have long passed the ordeal of public criticism, the most noted 
are, « Les Pensees $" — « Les Souvenirs ;" — « Memoires sur VJln- 
gleterre ;" — and, « Les Lettres Chinoises" [The Thoughts — The 
Recollections' — Memoirs on Eugland — and the Chinese Letters.] 

The family de Levis is supposed to be among the most ancient 
in France ; and to be descended from that tribe, to whom Moses 
gave the most fearful command ever issued by the warrior- pro- 
phet to his obedient legions. The actual head, however, of that 
illustrious and ancient family, partakes of none of the destroying 
spirit of his Hebrew ancestors ; and though a representative of 
the ancient Preux, as chevalier d'honneur to the Dutchess of Berri, 
he has sacrificed more to Mmerva in her sapient, than in her 
belligerent divinity. As an accomplished and highly-endowed 
gentleman, the Due de Levis ranks high in the literary, as well 
as in the fashionable circles of Parisian society. 

In pages consecrated to the eminent and the celebrated in the 
political and literary circles of Paris, it would be a strange so- 
lecism to admit the name of him, whose works bring the highest 
price, and whose opinions are the organ of a leading party. The 
Viscomte de Chateaubriant is at this moment so immediately 
before the world, in his double capacity of author and states- 
man, that it would be at once idle and presumptuous to add a 
single observation to his name. M. Chateaubriant, now wholly 
occupied by his political career, and most celebrated for his Genie 
du Christianisme,* will yet most probably reach posterity by his 
beautiful Indian tale of Mtala. 

Among the first, and among the pleasantest circles, in which 
we were received in Paris, was that which assembles on Saturday 
evening at the hotel of the Count and Countess de Pastoret.f I 
had an early opportunity afforded me of becoming acquainted 
with one of the best and most highly-informed men, and one of the 
most accomplished women in France ; and it would be difficult 
to receive a more favourable impression of the state of society, 
in Paris, than the circles of their salon were calculated to af- 
ford. 

The Comte de Pastoret was, under the ancient royal regime, 
a member of the academy of belles lettres, and historiographer 
of France. Distinguished by the part he took in the early 
epochs of the revolution, he was made minister of the interior 

* M. Chateaubriant Is of an ancient and noble family, and of a name well 
known in the history of his country. 

j- The Countess Pastoret, and her elegant friend, the Marchioness de Col- 
bert Chabanais, were the two ladies I met in Paris, who had the most perfect 
and extensive acquaintance with English literature, modern and ancient. 



1QQ EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

under the republic in 1790, and president of the department of 
Paris, and procureur -general of the same department, in su« ces- 
sion. Having participated in all the acts of the republic, he nar- 
rowly escaped the reign of terror, and in 1797 he again appear- 
ed upon the scene, as deputy of the Var, to the Counril of Five 
Hundred, took an active part in the divisions of the Directory, 
and demanded the extinction of the clubs, whose crimes had 
sullied and counteracted the intentions of the revolution. Placed 
on the list for deportation, he escaped from his exile in Cayenne, 
on his return to France, was named by the consular power, in 
1798, Professeur du Droit de la Nature et des Gens, an College de 
France [Professor of the Law of Nature and of the People, at 
the College of France]. Under the imperial government, he 
was created successively member of the Institute, senator, rount 
of the empire, and officer de la legion d'honneur. On the expul- 
sion of the Emperor, the King named him peer of France, con- 
seiller de I'imiversite, president du college electoral du Var, and 
commandant de la legion d'honneur. The Count de Pastoret has 
distinguished himself by many political rapports and me moires, for 
the academy of inscriptions and belles lettres. He is at present 
engaged in a voluminous work on legislation, part of which had 
been given to the press, during my residence at Paris. 

His son, Monsieur A. de Pastoret, who held a place in the 
section of ponts et chaussees [bridges and roads] under the Em- 
peror, and is now maitre des requites ordinaires [master of com- 
mon requests] under the King, is the author of the pretty poem 
of the Troubadours, and an interesting pamphlet sur Henri Quatre 
[on Henry the Fourth], 

It is sufficient to mention the name of Pigault Le Brun, to 
recal to English readers the author of so many pleasant and 
humorous no\els; which, even through the medium of trans- 
lation, have come close in estimation upon the productions of 
Smollet and Fielding. The novels of Pigault Le Brun have been 
translated into most modern languages, but by the delicacy of 
Parisian criticism are not always deemed worthy of that lan- 
guage, in which they are composed. — *« Les romans de Pigault 
le Brun" said a French critic and wit to me, *« out tonjours Pair 
d'etre composes dans les rues, etecritssur les bornes'** [The novels 
of Pigault Le Brun, have always the air of being composed in 
the streets, and written upon the posts]. The charge of coarse- 
ness made in France against the author, is too well founded to 
admit of defence; but the mind (hat originated the frail but fas- 
cinating character of Fanchette, in the Macedoine, one of the 

* Pigault Le Brun was a revolutionary writer, and his works are said to 
partake boih of* the strength and coarseness of the day. He is now, under 
existing circumstances, by no means a favourite author with particular classes. 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. £($£ 

most amusing and philosophical of his tales, is surely capable of 
great elegance and refinement of conception- But for her •• Ver- 
tu de.moins" there are fev\ female writers, however delicate or 
celebrated, who would have disdained the creation of su< h a 
character, as the tender, generous and devoted Fanchette, 
Monsieur Le Brun is a member of the Theatre Franqais, and 
brother to Michaud, one of the first comic actors in Europe. 

Monsieur Picard, Directeur de V Odeon, has obtained some 
celebrity in England for his novels. In France he is best know n 
and most admired for his excellent and numerous comedies. His 
Pctde Ville. Let Marionettes, Monsieur Mu&urd, Les deux Reputa- 
tions, and Le Cotateral are among those of his works, which have 
most eminently contributed to bestow on him the distinguishing 
sobriquet of « Le petit Moliere" [nick-name nftfee little Moliere]. 
The dramatic talents of Monsieur Picard procured him the coun- 
tenance of the late Emperor; who on the representation of Les 
•Marionettes" [The Puppets], expressed his admiration of the pie e, 
by settling a handsome pension on the author. — The Emperor 
also forwarded his reception at the Institute, and named him 
directeur de Vacademie imperiale de musique. — It seems, indeed, 
that the possession of talent was no vain distinction, under the 
imperial regime — and the friends and enemies of Napoleon alike 
agree, that no merit escaped his liberal countenance and princely 
munificence; but such as proudly disdained the one, or rejected 
the other. It must also be allowed, that these instances of inde- 
pendence were few and rare, during my residence in France, at 
least I found it extremely difficult to discover 

"Their local habitation, and their name-"* 

I had often been assured, in some literary circles of Paris, 
that the greatest revolution which had taken place in their litera- 
ture, since the reign of Louis XIV., has Occurred in the taste, 
talent, and style of their female writers. They still speak with 
rapture of the facility, the abandonnement [the freedom], the 
grace, of the compositions of the La Fayettes, the Sevignes, the 
Caylus's ; and oppose them in decided superiority to the de 

* I frequently spoke on this subject to many of my royalist, and ultra friends 
in Paris. They all allowed that Buonaparte sought out intellectual merit with, 
great avidity, and that he loaded authors, artists, and men of science, with 
favours and honours, and titles and emoluments; but they universally added, 
" *Mais ceptndant e'e'toit pour les avilir" [But however it was to disgrace them]. 
In England, where " all the talents" has become a bye-word for ridicule and 
contempt, it is true, no s'eps have been taken to degrade its men of genius, by 
making them /jeers- of the ret dm, senators, and persons of high official responsibili- 
ty. They are not even " avrfis" [disgraced] by the slightest notice or favour; 
and are simply marked out and distinguished by neglect t 

PART II. T 



16S EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

Staels,the Cottins, the Genlis's, and the Soiizas. But the great 
claim to ihat originality of invention and combination which 
constitutes thp essence of genius, belongs exclusively to the 
modern writers. The best compositions of the female wits of 
the •« beau siecle" [brilliant age], exhibited but the art of trans- 
ferring the elegant gossipry, so eternally practised in their sa- 
lons, to their letters and adopting in their written accounts of 
the anecdotes, incidents, slanders, intrigues, and tracasseries 
[tricks] of the day, the same epigrammatic point and facility of 
expression, which belong to the genius of their language, and 
which have at all times been the study, the charm, and the habit 
of their conversation. 

The life of such a woman as Madame de Sevigne, was passed 
in social little circles* in eternal visits, and in seeking, hearing, 
circulating, and transcribing, all that was passing in the city or 
the court. Women of rank had then no domestic duties, though 
they had many social ties. Their infants were nursed by hire- 
lings, their children were reared in convents, their husbands 
lived with the army or the court, and those profounder feelings, 
which exercise so powerful an operation upon female intellect, 
remained cold and undeveloped. They read little, because the 
scale of modern literature was then circumscribed, and few wo- 
men studied the dead languages. The whole power of their 
mind, therefore, was confined and levelled to the combination 
and recitation of the events, which took place in the most frivo- 
lous, intriguing, but polished society, that eve? existed. Their 
style was brilliant, playful, and elegant; and it was eminently, 
perhaps exclusively, calculated to etemiser la bagatelle"* [to per- 
petuate trifles]. 

When, however, they abandoned facts for fiction, they wholly 
failed in their attempt ; and in the world of invention there is, 
perhaps, nothing so cold, cumbrous, and wearisome, so out of 
the line of social nature, and yet so remote from the fairy re- 
gions of fancy* as the romances of Mademoiselle Scuderie, and 
the novels of Madame La Fayette. They soon fell by their own 
ponderous weight, even in an age when they had novelty to sus- 
tain them, and have now long been known by name only. 

The two most celebrated female writers of France, Madame 
de Genlis and Madame de Stael, mark successively the progress 
of female intellect, and the scope given by circumstances to fe- 

* Speaking- of the talents of Mesdames de Stael and de Genlis, a French 
critic of the old school, observed to me, " Pour cesfemmes Id, elles se sont fait 
une imagination et une litte'rature vv-iles. — Madame, il y a, dans I'une et V autre, 
de (41101 /aire trois ou quatre hommes d^esprit" [Those women are masculine in 
imagination and literature. — Madame, there is in them enough to make three 
or four men of talent.] 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. £Qg 

male talent in that country. The works of Ma-'ame de Genlis 
form a sort of connecting link between those women, who wrote 
at (he latter end of Louis the XlVth's day, and those who have 
appeared since the revolution. The foundress of a new genus of 
composition in her own language, her domestic stories are a de- 
viation from the grave formalities of the early French novel; 
and stand equally free from the licentious liberties of the new, a 
witty but an immoral school, founded by the Marivaux, the 
Louvets, and the Leclos. M. de Genlis, if not the first who 
made works of imagination the vehicle of education, was at 
least earliest of those, who introduced instrin tion and science 
into tales of sentiment and passion ; and the erudition which oc- 
casionally gleams through her pages, has been thought to do 
the honours of the head, to the exclusion of the interests of the 
heart: while her pure and polished style, flowing and smooth as 
it is, stands ace used by the severity of French criticism of ap- 
proaching to the studied elegance and cold precision of a pro- 
fessed rhetorician. It may, however, be said with great truth, 
that none perhaps ever wrote so well, who wrote so much ; or 
has ever blended so few faults with so many merits of style and 
composition. Madame de Genlis just held that place in society 
from her rank, her fashion, her political tendencies, and literary- 
successes, which was most calculated to excite against her a host 
of enemies. Had she been more obscure, as a woman, she would 
have been less severely treated, as an author. 

The genius of Madame de Stael belongs" to the day and age 
in which it dawned, and by which it was nurtured. It partakes 
of their boldness and their aspirations, their freedom and their 
force. Fostered amidst philosophical inquiries, and political 
and social fermentation, its objects are naturally grand, its scope 
vast, its efforts vigorous. It has the energy of inspiration, and 
its disorder. There is in the character of Madame de Stael's 
compositions, something of the Delphic priestess. Sometimes 
mystic, not always intelligible, we still blame the god rather 
than the oracle ; and wish perhaps that she were less inspired, or 
tve more intelligent. 

While other writers (both male and female) in France have 
turned with every breeze, that fluttered in the political hemi- 
sphere, Madame de Stael has steadilv proceeded in the magni- 
ficent march of genius, governed by principle: and her opinions, 
while they are supported b\ all the force of female enthusiasm, 
derive an additional weight, from the masculine independence 
and steadiness of their advocate. 

I had io lament that Madame de Stael had left France, at the 
moment when I entered it; and Ivvas tantalised by imitations, 
which proposed my meeting her at the house of a mutual friend. 



164? EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

at the time when imperious circumstances obliged me to return to 
Ireland. I thus was prevented from seeing one of the most dis- 
tinguished women of the age, from whose works 1 had received 
infinite pleasure, and (as a woman, I may add) infinite pride. 
Her character was uniformly described by her friends, to me, 
as largely partaking rtl a disposition whose kindness knew no 
bounds; and of feelings which lent themselves, in ready sympa- 
thy, to every claim of friendship, and every call of benevolence. 
— Among those, who know her well, the splendor of her reputa- 
tion seems sunk in the popularity of her character ; and *« e'est 
une excellente personne ;" ** e'est un bon enfant" [She is an excel- 
lent woman ; she is a good creature], were epithets of praise 
constantly lavished on one, who has so many more brilliant claims 
to celebrity.* 

Madame de Genlis was at Paris, when I arrived there : but I 
was told on every side, that she had retired from the world ; 
that site was invisible alike to friends and strangers. — That, 
" Elle s'etaitjetee dans la religion!" or that «* elle s'etait mise en 
retraite dans une societe de Capncines" [She had thrown herself 
into the arms of religion, or that, she had retired to a society of 
Capuchins], — 1 had despaired therefore of seeing a person, out 
of whose works I had b<en educated, and whose name and writ- 
ings were intimately connected with all my earliest associations 
of books and literature ; when an invitation from this distin- 
guished writer herself brought me at once to her retreat, in her 
convent of the Carmelites — an order, recently restored with more 
than its original severity, and within whose walls Madame de 
Genlis was retired. As I drove « aux Cannes" it is difficult to 
say, whether Madame de Genlis or Madame de La Valliere was 
uppermost in my imagination. — Adjoining to the gloomy and 
monastic structure, which incloses the Carmelite sisterhood, (in 
barriers which even royalty is no longer permitted to pass) stands 
a small edifice appropriated to the lay- guest of this silent and 
solitary retreat. The pretty garden belonging exclusively to 
this wing of the convent, is only divided from its great garden 

* Both Madame de Stael and Madame de Genlis, appeared to me to be 
rather unpopular with ihe royalists and ultras: the one, for her supposed re- 
publican principles ; the other, for the part she took in the early period of »he 
revolution. Of Madame de Stael, they constantly said to mi , " Cett de 
V Eloquence, si vans Voulez ; cependunt e'est une phrasiere que Madr.me de S /'* 
[You may call it eloquence ; but Madame de S ui is onl\ a pompous and 
empty talker] Of Madame de Cienl is,— " Pour son style, e'est tl'une fm> ete 
tres facile et etegante, mais il n'y a rien de naturel dans ses rowans, que h-s en- 
fans!" [The purity of her style is easy and elegant, yet the>e is nothing na- 
tural in her novels but the children] The " Buttue'cas'' , of Madame de < - i.lis, 
rnus< . however, by this, hive re. onr>h-d her to the most inveterate friends of 
legitimacy, church, state, and the king of Spain ! 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. ±Q§ 

by a low wall, and it admits at its extremity the melancholy 
view of a small chapel or oratory, fatally distinguished by the 
murder of the bishops and priests, imprisoned there during the 
reign of Robespierre. Madame de Genlis received me with a 
kindness, a cordiality, that had all the naivete and freshness of 
youthful feeling, and youthful vivacity. There was nothing of 
age in her address or conversation ; and vigour, animation, a 
tone of decision, a rapidity of utterance, spoke the full posses- 
sion of every feeling and every faculty : and t found her in the 
midst of occupations and pursuits, which might startle the in- 
dustry of youth to undertake or to accomplish. 

When I entered her apartment she was painting flowers in a 
book, which she called her <« herbier sacre" [sacred herbal], in 
which she was copying all the plants mentioned in the Bible. 
She showed me another volume, which she had just finished, full 
of trophies and tasteful devices, which she called Vherbier de re- 
connaissance [the herbal of gratitude]. <* But I have but little 
time for such idle amusements," said Madame de Genlis. She 
"Was, in fact, then engaged in abridging some ponderous tomes 
of French Mem ores, in writing her « Journal de la Jeunesse" 
[Journal of Youth,] and in preparing for the press her new novel 
" Les Battuecas" which she has since given to the world. 

Her harp was nevertheless well strung and tuned ; her piano- 
forte covered with new music, and when 1 gave her her lute, to 
play for me, it did not require the drawing up a single string. 
All was energy and occupation. — It was impossible not to make 
some observation on such versatility of talent and variety of 
pursuits. — « Oh ! this is nothing" (said Madame de Genlis) 
« what I pride myself on, is knowing twenty trades, by all of 
which I could earn my bread." 

She conversed with great earnestness, but with great simpli- 
city, without effort, as without pretension, and laughed heartily 
at some anecdotes [ repeated to her, which were then in circula- 
tion in Paris. — When 1 mentioned the story of her receiving a 
mysterious pupil, who came veiled to her apartments, whose 
face had never been seen even by her attendants, she rvplied — 
that there was no mystery in the case ; that she recie\ed two or 
three unfortunate young people, who had no means of support- 
ing themselves; and to whom she taught the harp, as a mode of 
Subsistence, as s!ie had done, to Casemir, now one of the finest 
harpist«\s in the world. — I could not help telling her, I believed 
she had a passion for educating; she replied, «< au contraire, cela 
m'a toujours ennuye" [on the contrary it always wearied me,] 
and added, it was the only m ans now left her of doing good. 

I had been told in Paris, mat Madame de Genlis had carried 
on a secret correspondence with the late Emperor ; which is an- 



I6g EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

other term for the higher walks of espionage, I ventured one 
day to talk to her on the subject; ami she entered on it with 
great promptitude and frankness. *» Buonaparte," she said, 
« was extremely liberal to literary people — a pension of four 
thousand francs, per annum, was assigned to all authors and 
gens-de-lettres, whose circumstances admitted of their acceptance 
of such a gratuity. — He gave me, however, six thousand, and a 
suite of apartments at the Arsenal, As I had never spoken to 
him, never had any intercourse with him whatever, I was struck 
with this liberality, and asked him, what he expected i should 
do to merit it ? When the question was put to Napoleon, he 
replied carelessly, ♦* Let Madame de Genlis write me a letter 
once a month." As no subject was dictated, 1 chose literature, 
but I always abstained from politics?" Madame de Genlis 
added, that though she never had any interview with him, yet 
on her recommendation, he had pensioned five indigent persons 
of literary talent. 

One of these persons was a mere UUraire de societe [literary 
amateur], and it was suggested to Buonaparte, that if he grant- 
ed four thousand francs per annum to a man, who was not an 
author, and was therefore destitute of the usual claims on such 
stated bounty, that there were two friendsHU that person, equally 
clever, literary, and distressed, who would expect, or at least 
ask, for a similar provision. « Eh Men" (said Buonaparte,) 
« cela fait douze mille francs" [Well (said Buonaparte) that makes 
twelve thousand francs] ; ami he ordered the other two distress- 
ed literati to be put on the annuity list with their friend. 

It was said to me in Paris, that Madame de Genlis had retir- 
ed to the Carmelites, " desabusee des vanites de ce monde, et des 
chimeres de m la celebrite" [undeceived as to the vanities of the 
world and the chimeras of celebrity], I know not how far this 
may be true, but it is certain, that if she has done with the va- 
nities of the world, she has by no means relinquished its refine- 
ments and tastes, even amidst the coldness and austerity of a 
convent. Her apartment might have answered equally for the 
oratory of a saint, or the boudoir of a coquette. Her blue silk 
draperies, her alabaster vases, her fresh-gathered flowers, and 
elegant Grecian couch, breathed still of this world: but the large 
crucifix, that image of suffering and humility, which hung at 
the foot of that couch ; the devotional books that lay mingled 
witli lay works, and the chaplets and rosaries which hung sus- 
pended from a wall, where her lute vibrated, and which her 
paintings adorned, indicated a vocation before which genius lay 
subdued, and the graces forgotten. On showing me the pious 
relics which enriched this prett) cell, Madame de Genlis point- 
ed out to my admiration a Christ on the Cross, which hung at the 



EMINENT* AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. ±$J 

foot of her bed. It was so celebrated for the beauty of its exe- 
cution, that the Pope had sent for it, when he was in Paris, and 
blessed it, ere he returned the sad and holy representation to its 
distinguished owner. And she naturally placed great value on 
a beautiful rosary, which had belonged to Fenelon ; and which 
that elegant saint had worn and prayed over, till a few days be- 
fore his death. 

If years could be taken into the account of a lady's age, Ma- 
dame de Genlis must be far advanced in life ; for it is some time 
ba< k since the Baron de Grimm speaks of her, as a demoiselle de 
qualite, quin'etait connue alors, que par sajolie voix, et son talent 
pour la harpe" [a young lady of quality who was then only dis- 
tinguished for her fine voice, and her talent for the harp]. In- 
firmity, however, seems to have spared her slight and emaciated 
figure ; her dark eye is still full of life and expression ; and 
though her features are thin, worn and sharply marked, and her 
complexion wan and pale, the traces of age are neither deep nor 
multiplied. If her person is infinitely less fresh and vigorous 
than her mind, still it exhibits few of those sad impressions, 
which time slowlv and imperceptibly prints, with his withering 
and silent touch, on the firmest muscle and the brightest bloom. 

My visits to the cloisters of the Carmelites were as frequent as 
the duties of Madame de Genlis, and my own engagements in 
the world would admit: and if I met this distinguished and high- 
ly endowed person with the high-beating throb of expectation, I 
parted from her with admiration and regret.* 

Literary works, even of the greatest merit, do not always ex- 
tend their interest to their author. There are many whom we 
are pleased to read, and yet whom we are not desirous to know. 
Books are so rarely the transcript of those who compose them, 
that a few experiments soon teach us the probability of disap- 
pointment, in a personal intercourse with their authors. 

To this observation, however, there are many delightful ex- 
ceptions. Who, that ever read Adele de Senange* or Eugenie et 
Mathilde, and did not wish to know Madame de Souza? Who, 
that had passed an hour in the society of Madame de Souza, and 

* With all Madame de Genlis' works on education full in my memory, I 
naturally occasionally reverted to those high characters, for whose use they 
had been chiefly composed. Oi Mademoiselle d'Orleans, she spoke with ma- 
ternal affection ; as one in whom every feminine excellence was united. Of 
the Duke d'Orleans, she spoke not only with admiration, but with evident 
pride,— and well she might! A character, which has carried off the esteem 
of every country he has honoured by his residence ; and whose intrinsic vir- 
tues, superior to the influence of all faction and party, have obtained the uni- 
versal suffrages and respect of his own, reflects a splendid credit on her, 
whose precepts had so great a share in his education. "But," said Madame 
de Genlis, " his inherent dispositions were so happy, that he owed almost 
every thing to nature-'* 



£6g EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

did not hastily recur to Mete de Senange, and Eugenie et Mathil- 
de? The works and the author are, indeed, fair nd lovih re- 
flections of each other. Whatever is admirable in tiie pa, es of 
the former, will be found equally fascinating in the manner and 
conversation of the latter. Madame de Souza is not only 
"known to fame ," as the author of some of the prettiest novels 
in the French language; she had long made a higiier claim to 
distinction, as the devoted and incomparable mother of one of 
the bravest and most gallant young otlicers in the armies of Eu- 
rope, General the Count Flahaut.* 

Educated chiefly in England, by his mother, who, it seems, in 
him only, has 

"Liv'd, and breath'd, and had her being !" 

the young Flahaut followed the profession of arms, in which his 
father died; and by his singular valour, romantic intrepidity, 
and military talent, attained, without influence or i uteres t, to 
the rank of chef a" escadron du 13 e regiment de chasseurs- a cheval. 
It was his merits that forced themselves on the observation of 
Buonaparte, whose notice he had not courted, and was some 
time without attracting; and having been made colonel aide-de- 
camp to the Prince de Neufchatel, bis conduct at the battle of 
Moiiilow procured him a brilliant and rapid promotion. Sig- 
nalised at the battles of Dresden, Leipsick, ami Hanau, his va- 
lour in the field of Waterloo was followed by other strenuous 
efforts, in favour of the falling monarch, to whom he had attach- 
ed himself with a devotion, which had its origin in gratitude, 
and generously grew with the misfortunes of its objects. 

With tins excellent son and gallant soldier, the existence of 
Madame de Souza has become so identified, that it would be dif- 
ficult to mention the one, without alluding to the other. And 
when I asked her, which was the work of all her productions 
which she herself the most esteemed, she replied, ** here at least 
is the passage that came warmest from the heart!" She turned 
over the pages of "Eugenie et Jlathilde" and pointed to that 
affecting paragraph, which begins «• Fauvres Meres." 

Monsieur Moreau de La Sarthej was our Cicerone to the hotel 
de Souza, and he is himself a very interesting link in the chain 
of association, which often leads back the imagination to hours 

* Many years after the death of General Flahaut, Madame de F- married 
the Portuguese ambassador, M. de Souza; a gentleman, whose conversation 
is marked by very extensive reading and high acquirement. 

f Monsieur le Docteur Moreau de la Sarthe, professor of medical literature 
in lh%Bcole de la Medicine, is an accomplished and elegant scholar, and one 
of the mosv distinguished physicians in Paris- He is author of a well-known 
work. " on Women" 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. £(5g 

so pleasant to recollec*. Madame dp Souza'is still a very love- 
ly woman, — and her works, though popular throughout Europe, 
and translated into most modern languages, must always luse 
something of their charm, by being transferred into any lan- 
guage from her own. 

In her exquisite little novel of "Eugenie et Mathilde," — there 
is a delicacy of perception, a tenderness and depth of feeling 
which is, or ought to be, the true characteristic of a woman's ge- 
nius; and the manner in which she has traced the subtleties, the 
prejudices, the illusive hopes and w 7 ell sustained sufferings of the 
French emigrants, in the Memoirs of the Family of the Comte de 
Revel, is directed by a spirit at once philosophical and just, and 
drawn with a fidelity which experience as well as observation 
must have inspired and guided. — «* I wrote Adele de SSnange*" 
(said Madame de Souza to me) « merely for my own amusement, 
and to distract my mind from the horrors of the early part of the 
revolution, in which I was then plunged." — Adele de Senange, 
with all its merits, is in fact evidently the work of a very young 
person, it is, however, 1 think (in France at least) the most 
popular of any of Madame de Souza's productions.^ The writ- 
ings of Madame de Souza may perhaps take their place on the 
same shelf with those of Madame Cottin. 

«• Je m 9 occupe actuellement" (says Voltaire, in one of his letters 
to D'Alembert,) "je m'occupe actuellement de la conversion de 
Monsieur de Villette; a qui fai fait fair e le meilleur mnrche, qu'on 
puisse jamais conclure; — it a Spouse dans ma chaumiere de Femey 9 
une file, qui n'a pas un sous, et dont la dot est, de la vertu, de la 
philosophie, de la candeur, de la sensibilite, une extreme beautS, Cair 
le plus noble, et tout d dix-nenf ans" [I am seriously occupie I with 
the conversion of Monsieur de Villette; and he has turned out 
better than could possibly have been supposed ; — he has mar- 
ried in my cottage of Ferney, a^young girl who has not a far- 
thing, and whose portion is virtue, philosophy, candour, sensi- 

* Many ladies of distinguished literary merit now reside in Paris. Among 
others, Madame Elizabeth de Bon, (author of " Les Aveux de VAmitie','") to 

whose polite attentions I stand much indebted- Mademoiselle de T , 

air. hor of Marie Balden, and Cecile de Renneville. Mademoiselle Alexandrine 
Gottis, who has lately produced " Frangois Premier" and Madame de Chd- 
teaubriand. While the translation of many of our best literary productions, 
and those of Germany, are given by women, I owe too much to the Viscoun- 
tess de ltoulz, for her beautiful translation of one of my earliest and most im- 
perfect productions, the Novice of St. Dominick, hot to avail myself of this 
opportunity to offer my acknowledgments. The celebrated Helen Marie Wil- 
liams has long been a resident in Paris, surrounded by a large circle of distin- 
guished friends, who meet every Sunday evening at her hotel. At one of the 
soirees of Miss Williams, I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with 
Monsieur Marron, whom Buonaparte styled the " Protestant Pope" and who 
is esteemed the most eminent Hugonot preacher in France. 

PART II. Z 



170 EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

bility, extreme beauty, a noble deportment, and whose age is 
only nineteen.] 

It would be difficult to say, with what lively pleasure I receiv- 
ed a visit from the original of this splendid picture, and heard 
the name of the Marchioness de Villette, the celebrated «♦ belle et 
bonne" [fair and good], of Voltaire, announced in my apartments. 
The passing flight of many years, the loss of a lovely daughter, 
and other cin uinstanres unfavourable to the preservation of per- 
sonal charms, may have somewhat lessened the claims of Ma- 
dame de Villette to that extreme beaute, which procured her the 
first part of the pretty sobriquet [nickname], given her by Vol- 
taire. But to judge by her gratuitous kindness and attentions 
to myself, during my residence in Paris, she still maintains un- 
disputed claims to the latter epithet. Her perfect and inexhaus- 
tible good nature provided me with many sources of high enjoy- 
ment to which her numerous and curious recollections of her il- 
lustrious adopted father most materially contributed. 

The mind, the memory, the conversation, the very house of 
Madame de Villette, is full of Voltaire. He has become the rul- 
ing thought of her existence ; and to revere his genius, and to 
admire his works, is a short and sore passage to her heart. 

Though born of a noble family, she proudly boasts herself 
among the number of those, whom his beneficence rescued from 
obs urity, and rendered completely happy. The family de Vari- 
court, of the Paysde Gex, near Geneva, had early distinguished 
itself in the French armies ; and seven younger brothers of Mon- 
sieur de Varicourt, the father of Madame de Villette, had enter- 
ed the French service, and obtained the order of St. Louis. The 
fate of her own and youngest brother, has long become an inte- 
resting and historical fact. Mons. de Varicourt had some time 
held a commission in the garde royale, under Louis XVI. He 
was on duty at the palace of Versailles, on the fatal 6th of Octo- 
ber, when the lives of the royal family were near falling a sacri- 
fice to (he infuriate rage of the Parisian mob. As the sanguinary 
multitude were rushing up the grand stairs of the palace, the 
young de Varicourt threw himself before the door of the Queen's 
apartment, and hopeless of any effectual resistance, suffered him- 
self to be cut to pieces, while, by a desperate sacrifice, he afforded 
time to the Queen to escape. His post and his life were thus 
onlv gallantly resigned together. 

Mademoiselle de Varicourt was one of the very large family of 
a high born hut indigent gentleman, the friend and neighbour of 
Voltaire, who adopted "belle et bonne" shortly after he had so 
happily provided for 'he great grand-niece of Corncillc. 

Some time after this adoption, he married Mademoiselle de 
Varicourt to his devoted, witty, but somewhat roue friend, the 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. \y± 

Marquis de Villette, in whose arms and hotrl Voltaire died,* and 
who (though of the ancient noblesse, and extreme!)' rich,) distin- 
guished himself among the constitutionalists of the early part of 
the revolution. 

From the moment Madame de Villette arrived in Paris, her 
house became one of the most distinguished for its brilliant assem-, 
blage of talent and rank ; and the hotel de Villette is still pointed 
out to the stranger's observation, among the classical and me- 
morable topography of that great capital. 

The apartment habitually occupied by Madame de Villette, is 
a sort of reliquary, dedicated t«> the remains of Voltaire. Her 
book-cases are filled vvith his works ; her secretaire with his MS. 
letters. The arm chair, which he always occupied, stands by her 
hearth. On the reading and writing desk, ingeniously fastened 
to one of its arms, he wrote for the last twenty years of his life. 
TheSevre bust, to which he alludesf in his letters to D'AIembert, 
and which was originally done for the King of Prussia* lies on 
her chimney-piece, in one cornerof the room, stands the model 
of the celebrated statue, by Pigal ;% and his picture, by Largil- 

* " C'est dans I* hotel de M. le Marquis de Villette, quHl est discendu avec Ma- 
dame Denis, pour ne point se sepurer de Belle et JBonne, qu'il cherit avec une ten- 
dresse extreme. Ily occupe un cabinet qui ressemble beaucoup plus au boudoir de 
la volupte', qiCau sanctuaire des Muses'' 

Memoires Historiques, par le Baron de Grimm. 

[It is in the hotel of the Marquis de Villette, where he h^s come with Ma- 
dam Denis, that he may not be separated from Fair and Good, whom he loves 
with extreme teudejness. He there occupies a cabine |, which rather resem- 
bles the boudoir of a voluptuary, than ;he sanctuary of the Muses. 

Historical Memoirs, by the Baron de Grimm.] 

On the death of her husband, the marchioness gave up this hotel, and has 
since resided partly at her hotel in 'he Rue Vungirard, and at the chateau de 
Villette, a few leagues from Paris. She has now, however, resigned the chateau 
to ihe present marquis, her only child, who is just come of age, and inherits 
a great paat of the family property, a portion having been lost in the re- 
volution. 

f " Le vieux magot que Pigal vent sadpter, sous vos auspices, n'est point du 
tout sculptable : Dites je vous en p<ie a votre Phidias, de s'en tenir a la petite fi- 
gure de porceluine faite arSevres,''' &c &c. Correspondance de Voltaire. 

[The old monkey which Pigal is to sculpture under your auspices, is not at 
all sculptable; Tell your Phidias, I beg of yon, to look at the little porcelain 
figure made at Sevres, &c. &c. Correspondence of Voltaire.] 

t " Vous saurez que dans ma retraite, 

Aujourd'hui Phidias Pigal 
A desb'i'.e i'original 
De mon vienxe; maigre squelette." 

M Pigal m'a fait par lunt, et pensant, il est aussi bon homme que bon artiste.— 
Cest la simplicity du vrai genie" 

[You must know that in my retreat to-day, Phidias Pigal has designed the 
original of my old and mea, ! e skeleton. Monseur Pigal has made me talk- 
ing and thinking; he is as good a man as he is an artist. — He has the simplk 
city of true genius.] 






iyg EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

Here, is suspended on the wall, with the engraving, by Barier ; 
on which he v\rote the following lines, when he presented it to 
the mistress of the day. 

" Barier grava ces traits destines pour vos yeux, 
Avec qielque plaisir daignez les reconnaitre; 
Leg vfitres dans mon coeur furenl graves bien mieux, 
Mais, ce fut par un plus grand maitre." 
[Barier has engraven these features as an offering to you ; deign to recog- 
nise them with some degree of pleasure ; yours on my heart are engraven 
much better, but it was by a greater master] 

In assembling round her the monuments, which genius has 
raised to the memory of her illustrious friend, Madame de Vil- 
lette has also preserved some more familiar and intimate me- 
mentos, which, with that genuine feminine feeling, that attaches 
interest to whatever has been consecrated by the touch of a be- 
loved object, she esteems as much as the picture of Largilliorc, 
or the statueof Pigal. She has preserved in her armoire [closet] the 
rich robe-de~chambre 9 \n which Voltaire received the multitude. v\ ho 
eame to offer him their homage at the hotel de Villette,* and the 

* Non ; ^apparition d , nn revenant, celle dun prophetc, d'vn apdtre, vfaurait 
pas cause phis de surprise et d* admiration, que I'arrivee de M Voltidre Ce non- 
veau prodige a suspendu guelgues momens tout autre interet ; il a fait tomber les 
bruits de guerre, les intrigues de robe, les tracasseries de cour, l$c &c Tout Pa~ 
ris s'est empresse de voter aux pieds de Cidole, et jamais le he'ros de notre -liecle 
n'eiit joui de sa gloire avec plus d? eclat, si la cour fwpuit honors d J un regard plus 
favorable, on seulement moins indifferent" [No; the appearance of a ghost, of a 
prophei, of an apostle, coold not have caused more astonishment than the ar- 
rival of xMonsieur de Voltaire. This new event, for a time, suspended every 
other interest ; the rumours of war, 'he intrigues of the gown, the chican, ries 
of the co-irt. &c &c. All P..ris hastened to the feet of the idol, and the greyest 
man of the age would never have enjoyed his glory with more splendour, if 
the court had regarded him with a more favourable aspect, or at least with 
less indifference}. This veneration of the French people for genius, contrast- 
ed with the coldness of the court, speaks volumes in proof how far the nation 
had got the start of the government, the institutions, and privileged classes of 
France. The only observation made by Louis XVI., on the arrival in Pans of 
the greatest writer of his reign or kingdom, was, to enquire whether "/'o>Jr C 
qid defendit « Voltaire de revenir d Paris avi.it £te leve" [whether the order 
had been revoked which forbade Voltaire to return to Paris]. It was the in- 
fluence and intercession of the Comtesse Jules de Polignac, and even of the 
queen herself, which prevented this decree of exile being renewed against 
the author of the Henriade, at eighty-four. After the death of Voltaire while 
the people of France were paying almost divine honours 'o tbifl man, 'he. 
Government and Church refused him burial in consecrated ground; and the 
archbishop and curates of Pans denied an asylum even U> his shes. The 
theatres were ordered not to play any of his tragedies — the journalists not to 
sp ak of his death — and ihe professors of the universities not to teach his 
verses to the students! Where are the names and the deeds of those, uho 
issued these barbarous decrees ? and where is the genius, where the memory 
of h,m, against whom they were fulminated? They arc now rising with time, 
and brightening 'he horizon of posterity— to Btnk and be forgo'ten only, with 
the language awl the nation, which they improved, enlightened, and glorified. 

With respect to the accounts, fabricated in the works of the Abbe B**, 



EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 173 

dress in which he appeared at the theatre, the night when he was 
crowned by a wreath of laurel placed on the brow .f his statue, 
by Clairon, amidst the applause and shouts of the assembled 
spectators. 

1 have often been permitted to examine all these relics in de- 
tail, and not only to read, but to ropy some of Voltaire's manu- 
script letters, which had not been printed;* and rhe pleasure I 
obviously derived from this interesting privilege, induced Ma- 
dame de Villette to make a sort of Voltaire commemoration, at 
winch she not only displayed all her treasures, but invited al- 
most all who still remained of the friends and cotemporaries of 
the patriarch of Ferney. This entertainment (a dejeuner a la 
fourchette [a fork-breakfast]) was, indeed, thoroughly Voltairian? 

and by the enemies of Voltaire, of his death-bed scene, Madame de Villette 
adds her testimony to many others given of their malignity and falsehood. 
She never left him for a moment- " To the last," she says, " all breathed the 
beneficence and kindness of his character ; and, except the little peevishness 
which he exhibited to the Cure of St. Sulpice, when he beckoned him away; 
and said, " Luissez moi mourir tranquWe" [Let me die quietly], all was 
tranquillity, and peace, and resignation." 

* Among the number of unpublished letters, the two following struck me 
to be curious ; the first as a picture of Voltaire's domestic character and per- 
fect bonhommie ; — the other, as being (Madame de Villette believes,) the last 
he -wrote; for she was not certain, whether it preceded or followed the cele- 
brated billet to the Comte Lally Tollendal. 

No. I. — Lettre au Sieur Carbo, Intendant de Monsieur de Voltaire. 

u Je recommande instammtrnt au Sieur Carbo, de mettre ordre au menage 
de Phomme Mayen, qui travaille pour moi au Chattelar, en menuisier. — 11 lui 
rer ommandera de ne plus s'enivrer, de ne point battre sa femme, et de travail- 
ler. — II recevra de la justice, s'il ne fait pas son devoir — II ira a. son loisr a 
l'hermitage. — 11 visitera les champs et les pres du domaine. II verra ce qu'on 
en peut faire, en quel etat sont les moutons, et il me rendra compte de tout. 
Je lui serai tras oblige." Voltaire. 

[Letter to the Sieur Carbo, Steward of Monsieur de Voltaire. 

I recommend to the Sieur Carbo, immediately to send an order to the man 
Mayen, that he may work for me at Chatelar, as a joiner. — To recommend to 
him not to ^et drunk, not to beat his wife, and to work industriously — It will 
be the worse for him, if he does not do his duty. — He may go at his leis'u-e to 
the hermitage. — He must visit the fields and the pastures of the estate — He 
must see what is to be done, and in what condition are the sheep, and send 
me an account of all. — I shall be much obliged to him. Voltaire.] 

No. U.—-A Madame St. Julien. 

A Paris, 1776. 
" Je sais bien ce que je desire ; mais je ne sais pas ce que je ferai ; je 
souffre dela tete aux pieds. — II n'y a q,e mon cceur de sain — Et cela n'est bon 
a rien." Voltaire. 

[To Madame St. Julien. 
I know well what I wish ; but I know not what I shall do ; I suffer from head 
to foot — My heart alone is healthy— and that is good for nothing. 

Voltaire ] 



IJ% EMINENT AND LITERARY CHARACTERS. 

and perhaps, a little French. The books, the wardrobes, the 
manuscripts of Voltaire, were all displayed ; inrense was burned 
in an encerisoir [censer] before his bust, w Inch was crowned hy the 
identical wreath, which he had modestly withdrawn from his own 
brow, when the admirati< n of a whole people had placed it 
there : and the sublime ode addressed to him by Chenier, was 
read alou and heard with an emotion, to be felt and to be un- 
derstood alone by this enthusiastic and ardent people; to whom 
genius is but another word for divinity ; and who, next to the 
great spirit, venerate those whom he has most informed with the 
rays of his own intelligence. 

Almost every object in the apartment where this « high solem- 
nity 99 was celebrated, produced, as it attracted attention, some 
anecdote relative to him, with whose memory it was connected. 
In placing the laurel wreath on the bust of Voltaire, Madame de 
Villette observed, ** When this wreath was offered to him at the 
theatre, he modestly laid it aside, whispering me, *< Je meurs 
sur les roses 99 [I am dying, on roses]. The audience, however, 
all stood up, and cried to me, »» Ramassex-le* ramassez>-le 99 [take 
it up, take it up], and I again placed it on his brow, amidst a 
thunder of applause." 

In his beautiful picture by Largilliere, done in his twenty- 
fourth year, it is extremely obvious that the world had not then 
passed over a countenance, in which no trait of the caustic sati- 
rist of future times is visible. There is a playfulness, a finesse 
[slyness] in the fine dark eyes, which resembles the espieglerie 
[vivacity] of arch boyhood; but the sharp lines, the abrupt an- 
gles, which mark the picture of his riper manhood, and give 
almost a wizard intetligence to his features, are no where to be 
found in this semblance of unworn, untried, and confiding 
youth. 

" Voltaire," said the Marquis de * * *, one o# his friends, 
who was present, « Voltaire lost sight of that picture a few 
years after it was done, and recovered it a few weeks before his 
death. It was painted for the object of one of his earliest and 
most ardent passions, the beautiful Phillis, afterwards Madame 
de Gouverne, to whom he addressed one of the prettiest epistles 
that ever was written, known under the name of " Des Vous et 
ties fu**? [You and Thou]. 



* A Madame de G- 



Phillis, qu'cst devenu ce terns, 
Oil, dans un fiacre promenee, 

Sans laquais, sans ajwstemens, 
De tes graces seules ornee, 

Contente d'un manvais souper, 
Que t'u chan^eais en ambrosie, 
Tn te livr.iis, dans ta f'olie, 

A l'amant heureux et trompej 



EMINENT AND I**ERARY CHARACTERS. 1J5 

Sixty years after the period in which he had sat for, and pre- 
sented her with that portrait, he learnt, on his arrival in Paris, 
that Phillis was stilt living. He immediately begged permission 
to wait (Mi her; but v\hen they met, they hoth remained for a 
considerable time speechless; and Phillis, once " de ses graces 
miles ornee" [adorned only by her graces], was now, at the age 
of ninety, a witch of Endor! 

In contemplating the ravages, which time bad made on the 
wrinkled visage of her lover, she remained almost insensible to 
the change which had taken place in her own person. When he 
had recovered from his first emotion, the eyes of Voltaire rested 
on the picture of a \oung and handsome man, to which the looks 

of Madame de G also occasionally rerurred *« It is the 

picture of the 3 oung Arouet," said Madamede G , »< who has 

immortalised me in his poem of the Vbus et Tu." Voltaire in- 
stantly begged this picture for Madame de Villette. — ♦« It can- 
not much longer be mine," said Madame de G ; and the 

picture was sent that evening to the dear « belle et bonne." — ** I 
remember," said the Marquis de * * *, <* having seen Voltaire 
in the evening of the day he had paid this melancholy visit. It 
had" considerably affected his spirits. — ** It was getting on the 
other side of the t Styx" he observed; but added, >\ ith a faint 
smile, « cependant nous n 9 avons pas beaucoup radote" [however 
we have not doted much]. 

As a pendant to this little anecdote of the picture of Largilliere, 
the Abbe de * * * related one of a more humorous cast of the 
miniature, which Voltaire had presented to Madame de Chate- 
let, and which was only rendered visible to the fair possessor by 
a spring, of which she alone had the secret. 

On the death of Madame de Chatelet, and in the first burst of 
his grief, Voltaire had an interview with the widowed husband, 
extremely affecting to both parties. Voltaire, on this occasion, 

Qui t'avait consacre" sa vie ? 
Le cic'l ne te donnait aiors, 
Pour tout rang et pom* tons tresors, 
Que les agr£mens de ton age, 
Un roeur tendre, un esprit volage, 
Un sem d'albarre, et des beaux yeux. 
Avec tant d'att raits precieux, 
H€las! qui n'eut e'e" triponne ? 

T<> le fus, oi jet gracieux, 
Et que l'amour me le pa-donne, 

Tu sais que je t'en aimais mieux. 
Ah ! Madame, que votre vie, 
D'honneurs aujourd'hui si remplie, 

DiffeVe de ces doux instants ! 
Ce large Suisse, ache-eux blancs, 
Qui meurt sans cease, a votre porte, 

Phillis, est l'image du terns, &c< he. &x. 



176 



EMINENT AND LITEH^RY CHARACTERS. 



ventured to beg bark the ring, which Madame de Chatelet had 
always worn. «* You are not ignorant of the friendship which, 
existed between us," said the afflicted lover to the afflicted hus- 
band ; *< and that rin^, so constantly worn, you are perhaps 
already aware, contains my picture." 

« 1 have witnessed your friendship," said the Marquis de 
Chatelet, *< and 1 know the ring you allude to. As you observe, 
she never parted with it; hut, to confess the truth, it is not your 
picture that it contains ! — that picture was instantly replaced by 
mine/" The tears of Voltaire ceased to flow! lie demanded 
proofs of this treason to friendship and to love. The ring was 
sent for, the secret spring was touched, the enamel flew open, 
and the picture of the young, the chivalresque St. Lambert stood 
confessed, in all the imposing superiority of youth and military 
glory. The philosopher closed the spring, and returned the ring 
to the mourning husband.* 

This little commemoration of Voltaire was among the most 
interesting and amusing morning entertainments I enjoyed at 
Paris: it united, by very intimate links, the present with the 
past : it exhibited the French character in one of its happiest as- 
pects, exquisitely alive to the supremacy of genius, devotedly 
true to the claims, as to the recollection of friendship ; highly 
endowed with a brilliant gaiety and profound sensibility ; foil of 
national glory for national worth ; and by its illumination and re- 
finement, its love of letters and of arts, wanting only a free 
government, to render the country that produces and combines 
such Itappy elements of moral and physical existence, not, I trust, 
the greatest, but one of the greatest nations of the earth. 

* The lovely Madame Jerome Buonaparte (Mrs. Patterson) and ourselves, 
were the only foreigners present at (his literary dejeuner [breakfast] The so- 
ciety of Paris, by its variety, frequently presents the most singular combina- 
tions and unlooked-f<r associations I was at a ball one evening, at Madame 
de Villette's, and leaning on Mrs. Patterson's arm, when the Prince Paul of 
Wirtemberg entered into conversation with me : some observations made by 
Mrs- Patterson induced him to ask her, whether she was an American? He 
was not aware that he asked this question of the -wife of the man, who was 
since married to his uton sister; the ex-king of Westphalia being now the 
husband of the Princess Royal of Wirtemberg. 



FOUR APPENDICES 



ON THE STATE OF 



LAW, FINANCE, MEDICINE, 



AND 



POLITICAL OPINION, 



IN FRANCE. 



BY SIR T. CHARLES MORGAN, M. D. 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The observations contained in the following sheets, too unimpor- 
tant to constitute a separate volume, may perhaps meet indulgence, 
under their present supplementary form. The results of individual 
observation and inquiry, they lay claim only to that portion of con- 
sideration, which their internal evidence may merit. The leading 
design in their composition has been, by comparison, example, or 
contrast of foreign habitudes, to mark some defects in domestic po- 
licy; and to remove some prejudices, which the author regards as 
unfavourable to the happiness and prosperity of his country. No- 
velty has therefore been occasionally sacrificed to the desire of im- 
pressing neglected or contested truths: and some recapitulation of 
known events was necessary, to give connexion to the remarks. 
For the rest: — all literary apologies are vain; and apologies for 
sketches thus slightly outlined, would have the additional demerit of 
being presumptuous. 

T. C. M. 

35, Kildare-Street, 
Afiril, 1817, 



APPENDIX. No. I. 
OF THE PROGRESS OF LAW, 

SINCE 

THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE. 

La diversite des loix civiles, est, comme la diversite de religion, ou de lan- 
gage, une barriere, qui rend etrangers, Pun a l'autre, les peuples les plus 
yoisins, et qui les empeche de multiplier entr'eux des transactions de tout 
genre, et de concourir ainsi mutuellement a l'accroissement de leur pros- 
perite. 

Motifs du projet de loi concernant le code Napoleon. 

The administration of justice in France was originally exercised, 
as a feudal right, by the manorial lords. To assist them in the dis- 
charge of these functions, and at first, perhaps, in cases of difficulty 
alone, they called to their council the clergy, or clerks, who, by 
their knowledge of reading and writing, remedied the ignorance of 
the unlettered barons; and became first advisers, next authorities, 
and lastly independent functionaries; raising themselves by degrees 
into a new order of the state, into a species of secondary aristocracy. 
Supremacy in knowledge has at all times been made the ready in- 
strument of pre-eminence in power; and as the clergy in the middle 
ages usurped authority over the ignorant lay -chiefs, so in modern 
times the people, by the gradual dissemination of instruction, have 
been enabled to wrest it from both, and have arisen in estimation 
and importance, in the exact proportion of their increasing intelli- 
gence. 

At the epoch of the revolution, the first processes of justice were 
administered by judges, appointed by the seignorial lord, and re- 
movable at his pleasure. Their jurisdiction extended to the more 
unimportant cases: they had power to impose fines, to decree cor- 
rectional punishments, and even to imprison for short periods: tr.ey 
took also the first examinations in criminal matters. According to 
the feudal maxim, that there was no land without its lord, these offi- 
cers existed in every part of the kingdom: and even the king, in ap- 
pointing judges, for those lands which he held in chief, acted merely 
in his capacity of lord of the soil. 



VI APPENDIX 1. 

Immediately above these officers, in dignity, were the senechals 
and bailies, who judged in the first instance the cases of greater im- 
portance. From their decision, an appeal lay to the thirteen par- 
liaments. Occasionally, however, their functions were superseded; 
and the most trifling affairs, by a privilege called " le droit de com- 
mittimus," [the right of committimus,] were carried at once before 
jthe parliament. Thus, for instance, the lowest office in the king's 
household entitled its possessor to bring his suits, however insignifi- 
cant, before the parliament of Paris, even though the venue lay at 
an hundred leagues distance. The expense and vexation attendant 
upon this privilege, became a certain mean of obtaining judgment 
by default, against every adversary whose fortune was not equal to 
encounter them. 

In civil matters, the law differed in almost every province. In 
some places, the Roman law prevailed; in others a code of local 
customs, founded on the Teutonic jurisprudence, but often contra- 
dictory to itself, and to the customs of adjoining provinces. Each 
court also had its own peculiar usages and precedents, which form- 
ed what was termed " la jurisprudence des arrets." [The jurispru- 
dence of decrees.] Hence a process lost in one court, might be 
recovered, if, on any pretence, it could be carried before another ju- 
risdiction, at the distance of a few miles: and it has been facetiously 
remarked, that in Old France the traveller changed his law with 
every relay of post horses. The litigation thus became an inextri- 
cable chaos: suits descended from generation to generation; and the 
party who could hold out the longest was generally the victor. 

The offices in the courts of justice were universally venal; they 
were also, in {mint of fact, hereditary; for the sons of judges most 
commonly purchased the places, which had been held by their fathers. 
These employments had likewise, in the same sense, become attach- 
ed to the nobility; for the parliaments commonly rejected those can- 
didates who were roturier, [commoners,] or at least, if such persons 
were accepted, they were ennobled for the occasion. Sometimes, 
indeed, the offices themselves conferred a species of nobility. Vol- 
taire, in one of his philosophical romances, makes a singular apolo- 
gy, or rather extenuation, of this abusive sale of the magistrature, 
by which the most learned advocates were excluded from the bench, 
and their place supplied by young men utterly ignorant of the law. 
He says, « Les juges deciderent plus vite, que les avocats ne dou- 
terent. Leur jugement fut presque unanime; ils jugerent bien, 
parce qu'ils suivaient les lumieres de la raison, et les autres avaient 
opine mal, parce qu'ils n'avaiem consuhe, que leurs livres." [The 
judges decided quicker than the lawyers examined. Their judg- 
ment was almost unanimous: they judged well because they followed 
the light of reason, and the others formed wrong opinions, because 
they consulted only their books] According to this statement it 
should appear that the written law had become so confused, that its 
study terminated in mere pedantry; and that the tribunals of France, 
unable to extricate themselves from the labyrinth, took refuge in it 



system of decisions in equity, or rather in the jus vagum of indivi- 
dual opinion. Notwithstanding the venality of judicial charges, and 
although two or three parliaments have been accused of corruption, 
these courts were in general inaccessible to pecuniary temptation. 
Even the famous process of Beaumar chats (the account of which, as 
given in his own pleadings, is so exquisitely amusing, and in which 
the wife of a judge was shown to have taken money from a litigant) 
proves the general purity of the bench, by the scandal and eclat it 
excited throughout all France. But if the parliaments were not 
open to sordid temptations, they were, to a great degree, governed 
by an esprit de corjis; and they conducted themselves with such 
hauteur towards their inferiors, that the neighbourhood of a con- 
seiller de parlement [a counsellor of parliament,] was considered as 
a disadvantage; so great was the danger of giving offence to that 
formidable body. Upon the whole, however, they exhibited consi- 
derable integrity, and were zealous and attentive in the discharge of 
their duties. 

In addition to their judicial functions, the parliaments, especially 
that of Paris, assumed a sort of legislative authority. For as the 
registering of the king's edicts was a part of their duty, and a ne- 
cessary preliminary to the efficiency of the law, they, by degrees, 
assumed a right of remonstrance against such measures as were 
unpopular, or displeasing to themselves. In these cases, however, 
upon a third demand from the king, upon his issuing " Lettres 
de juisson" [letters of command] or lastly, if he held a " lit de 
justice" [bed of justice] the parliament had no alternative but to 
obey, and to register the royal edict. Their only remedy, when thus 
pushed, was to suspend the administration of justice; an awkward 
and impolitic expedient, always terminating in a reconciliation with 
the court, at the expense of the people. These assemblies have, 
in fact, at all times been forward to oppose themselves to useful in- 
novations; and to those imposts which were calculated to fall equally 
upon every rank. It was in the famous remonstrance of the par- 
liament of Paris, presented in the year 1775, that the political doc- 
trine was consigned, which declares the people of France taillable 
et corveable, &c. &c. at the pleasure of the sovereign. 

•All these abuses were abolished by the constituent assembly; 
when the several contradictory codes were replaced by one univer- 
sal and uniform jurisprudence. For this purpose, a new system 
was ordered to be compiled, which, owing to the storms of the re- 
volution, was not completed until the consulate of Bonaparte; who, 
collecting all that had been arranged by his predecessors, laid the 
result before his conseil d'etat, [counsel of state] and at the same 
time made some changes in these enactments, dictated by the alter- 
ations in the form of government. It is this system, which forms 
the code civil, the present law of France, and of some other states, 
into which it has been introduced by the conquests of Napoleon. 

In the first periods of the revolution, the judges were elected by 
the people; and they held their office only for a definite term. The 



V11I APPENDIX I. 

seignorial judges were replaced by justices of the peace, chosen 
also by the people. Tribunals of conciliation were instituted, where 
civil matters might be settled by arbitration. Every arrondissement 
had its tribunal de premiere instance, [tribunal of the first process] 
and each department its superior court. There were likewise tri- 
bunals of appeal; and the cour de cassation [court of cassation] was 
appointed to take cognizance of errors of form, which had formerly 
been submitted to the judgment of the king's council. 

Upon the establishment of Napoleon on the throne, the election 
of the judges was taken from the people, and their appointment was 
assigned to the emperor. In a few instances, «so, he interfered ar- 
bitrarily to remove judges, already upon the bench, who were ob- 
noxious to him for their political sentiments, or conduct: and Louis 
XVIII, has liberally imitated his example, notwithstanding a ciause 
in the charter, which decrees the immovability of these functiona- 
ries. An English crown lawyer once ventured to define a charter, 
to be a " hatchment with a fiiece of wax dangling at the end of 
it;" and the emigrants imaged the French charte by a morsel of 
paper, which they tore, and threw them into the fire. There is, 
however, a force of public opinion, which can neither be erased nor 
cancelled; there is an eternal and indissoluble connexion of things, 
which unites falsehood with distrust, and tyranny with instability; 
and he is no less a traitor to his prince, than a subverter of his coun- 
try, who counsels a breach of royal faith, or tampers for temporary 
purposes with the purity of judicial administration. 

The procedure in criminal matters, under the old regime, was, 
from beginning to end, barbarous and unjust. The accused were 
confined in solitary dungeons, and were often secluded for years 
from all intercourse with their friends, family, and legal advisers. 
They were interrogated in private, by a magistrate, whose object it 
was to elicit, by the examination, as full an avowal as possible of 
guilt; and by captious and embarrassing questions, or even by a si- 
mulated compassion, and the semblance of a favourable impression, 
to entrap the prisoner, and to entangle him in his own answers.* 

The accusers underwent a similar interrogation; but they were 
not confronted with the accused, until the informations were com- 
pleted; and then, if by embarrassment, or repentance, they were 
induced to retract any part of their first statement, they subjected 
themselves to the punishment for perjury. Two witnesses were 
deemed necessary to a capital conviction; but, by a horrible species 
of logic, several evidences to probabilities were summed up, to 
make ione positive testimony; and the judges were bound, by oath, 
to condemn upon the evidence so offered. The accused received 
no communication of papers, employed as evidence, no notice of 
the charges brought against them, nor were they allowed the assis- 
tance of counsel. Such was the nature of the investigation before 

* See the account of the affair of the Cure* de London, of Chalais, and 
other victims of cardinal Richelieu, in "F Intrigue du Cabinet." 



the tribunals de premiere instance; and the decision of the court, 
founded upon this evidence, was made upon a report of the proceed- 
ings, drawn up by one only of its members. 

To what horrible system of policy, to what deplorable darkness 
of the intellect did it belong, thus to seek the conviction of the ac- 
cused, and to place the merit of judicial administration in attacking, 
rather than in defending, the life of a citizen? Upon the decision of 
this tribunal against the accused, the parly condemned was trans- 
ferred to the parliament; sometimes to a distance of many hundred 
miles, to receive sentence, in the chamber called la Tournelle. [The 
court for criminal causes.] And here again the opinion of the court 
was formed from the same documents, and upon the same princi- 
ples, which had already served for his condemnation; a report of 
the case was, as before, prepared, for the guidance of the judges, 
by one of their own number. The whole affair consequently may 
be considered as resting upon the opinion of two individuals. If, 
however, the accused was a noble, the magistrates of the haute 
chambre, [the high chamber,] who were the senior judges, assem- 
bled witn those of la tournelle; an odious, and perhaps an useless 
distinction. In all cases, the judges of parliament remained unac- 
quainted with the person of the accused, until the last moment when 
he was introduced, to appear before them upon the sellttte; [a stool 
used at trials] and as at this period ihe informations were already gone 
through, and nothing: remained but to pass sentence, the appearance 
of the prisoner in court, far from being serviceable to him, operated 
only as an useless insult. In passing judgment, no citation was made 
of the law upon which it was founded, nor was any detail given of the 
proceedings in which it originated. After specifying the crime, the 
decree proceeded mereiy to state, that "for the reasons resulting 
from the process^ they had judged," &c. &c. a formula, which sti- 
fled all moral responsibility in the judges, and abstracted the sen- 
tence from the dominion of public opinion. Execution immediately 
followed; and it might, at the option of the judges, be aggravated 
by the application of the torture. Louis XVI, towards the ciose of 
his reign, had indeed abolished the use of " the question," during 
the preliminary proceedings; but that, which, under the pretext of 
discovering accomplices, was inflicted after condemnation, remained 
in full force, till abolished by the constituent assembly 

The punishments inflicted on criminals, under the old regime, 
were varied and barbarous; and they were in a great measure re- 
gulated by the rank of the offender. In the reign of Louis XV, a 
Montmorenci was found guilty of assassination. His valet-de-cham- 
bre, condemned as an accomplice, was broken alive upon the wheel, 
while the principal received no other punishment than an imprison- 
ment, by lettere de cachet. The three punishments most commonly 
in use were the gallows, reserved ordinarily for the fieofile; decapi- 
tation for the privileged classes; and in cases of more serious of- 
fence, the wheel. This last infliction consisted in breaking the bones 
of the four extremities, with a bar of iron, and then despatching 

b 






X APPENDIX 1. 

the criminal with a blow on the breast. The last blow, however, 
(termed the coup, de grace,) was often refused; and the mutilated 
victim was left to expire, by the gradual exhaustion of nature. 

The frequency of these horrible spectacles, under the old govern- 
ment, could not fail to harden the heart, and to deaden the sympa- 
thies of the populace; and it may justly be accused of engendering 
the tyger-like ferocity, which was exhibited during the first burst 
of the revolution, and with which that event has been so repeatedly 
reproached Thousands of lives, sacrificed in the fury of political 
contention, do not inflict so heavy a disgrace upon a nation, nor lower 
so much the human character in the esteem of the moralist, as one 
of these deliberate and judicial murders, Where, on these occasions, 
was the boasted mildness of the Christian dispensation? Where the 
dispassionate illumination of an ermined magistracy? Where the 
chivalrous generosity of knighted monarchs, all leagued against a 
miserable and defenceless wretch, who, already dead in the eye of 
the law, was an object merely for sympathy and commiseration? 

But if, instead of a condemned criminal, we substitute an unhappy 
youth,* a minor, guilty of no crime, and accused only of a boyish 
frolic; if we consider him as a victim offered up by a dastardly 
bench, to appease the rage of a fanatical hierarchy; what language 
shall be found sufficiently pregnant with meaning, to characterise 
the religion, the morals, and the social institutions of the state, 
which tolerated txie exhibition? Oh, much injured and much abused 
nation!— -how long shall the world hear only of your errors and of 
your mistakes? How long shall it remain blinded to the infamy of 
those guides, who debased your reason, enslaved your persons, strip- 
ped you of your fair portion of nature's gifts, and then accuse you 
of wanting the virtues of independent manhood? 

To descend from crimes to absurdities, may be a species of anti- 
climax; but at the present moment, when every ancient abuse is re- 
establishing, and every innovation is rejected, merely because it is 
an innovation, there is no prejudice too trifling to be neglected. 
The punishment of hanging, was, under the ancient regime, deemed 
infamous; not so that of decapitation: and, as in infamous punish- 
ments, not only the culprit himself, but his whole family partook of 
the disgrace, and were thereby debarred from the exercise of many 
lucrative and honourable functions in the state, it became an object 
with noble families to commute the punishment in those cases, in 
which a member of their house rendered himself subject to the 
degrading infliction; and to obtain the substitution of decapitation. 

* The Chevalier de la Barre, grandson of a lieutenant-general, was found 
guilty of having sung- impious song's, and of having- passed a procession of 
capuchins, without taking ofT his hat. The judges of Abbeville condemned 
him to have his tongue torn out, his hand amputated, and himself to be burned 
by a slow fire: yet, not content with this barbarity, they applied the question 
before execution, to ascertain, as Voltaire expresses it, how many songs he 
^ad sung, and how many processions he had passed, without pulling off his hat. 



Nothing, indeed, could be more just, than by such a commuta- 
tion, to preserve the honour of an innocent family, whether noble or 
ro/tirtVr, [commoner]: but it is impossible to conceive a law more 
revolting to every feeling of justice, morals, and order, than that 
which in any case extends infamy beyond the person of the criminal; 
and which estimates disgrace, not in proportion to the offence, but 
according to the nature of the punishment, to which the accused 
may be arbitrarily subjected. It is certain that those persons who 
have enjoyed the equality of the British law, will be little likely to 
adopt these prejudices, or to permit the introduction of similar 
abuses in the judicial proceedings of our own country. But there 
are very many who forget that such opinions and such laws form 
part of the life's-blood, part of the very vivifying spirit of the go- 
vernment, which they have contributed to re-establish in France, 
and which they are still ready to uphold with their " lives and for- 
tunes." 

The punishment of burning, both by the quick and slow fire, was 
reserved for the crimes of sorcery and heresy; and by a dreadful 
obliquity of intellect, the most horrible pains were imposed for of- 
fences the most imaginary. Damien, who wounded Louis XV, with 
a penknife, to frighten, rather than to kill him, was torn with red hot 
pincers, had molten lead poured into his wounds, and was dragged 
asunder by horses. The two reporters of his trial, the probable 
contrivers of this horror, were pensioned for their services by the 
barbarian monarch. 

The celebrated avocat-general, Sequier, has been quoted as af- 
firming that the jurisprudence of France was preferable to that of 
England, u where they have," he says, " a fiuerile dread of punish- 
ing the innocent. Where the law speaks," he adds, " reason should 
be silent." 

Besides the criminal jurisdictions already noticed, there existed 
the tribunals of the farmers-general of indirect taxes. These per- 
sons had the appointment of their own judges, who had power to 
fine, imprison, and send to the gallies, for infractions of the fiscal 
laws. The perception of internal customs surrounded every pro- 
vince with a double circumvallation of custom-house officers and of 
smugglers, between whom there was waged an eternal war. In 
these cases the financial tribunals decided definitively upon their 
own interests, and the gallies and the gibbet were thus loaded for 
crimes, which could have no existence in a state whose affairs were 
moderately well administered; offences which, wherever they exist, 
lead inevitably to murder and to robbery, and strike home to the 
root of well-regulated industry and of sober economy. 

In the same manner also the cafiitaines de chasse [captains of the 
chace] of the royal forests held courts for the trial of offences 
against the game laws, and had power tc inflict similar punishments, 
upon the testimony of a single gamekeeper There were held like- 
wise, in France, prevotai [sheriffs] courts, in which, upon cer- 
tain occasions, the prevot condemned to death, and caused execu- 



Xll APPENDIX I. 

tion to be done, in twenty-four hours after conviction. In none oi 
these tribunals had the accused the advantages held forth by the 
British jurisprudence; the trials being, in all, conducted upon the 
same principles, as in the tribunal de premiere instance. [Tribu- 
nal of the first process.] The revolution had the merit of abolishing 
at a blow these complicated abominations, and of replacing them by 
the establishment of trial by jury. 

Besides the regular courts, the king from time to time nominated 
special commissions,* chosen from the most complying magistrates 
of the different tribunals, or from the grand council, for the purpose 
of trying such offences or persons, as it was not deemed convenient 
to bring before the ordinary courts. Against these extraordinary 
jurisdictions, the regular tribunals frequently appealed; but without 
any success in preventing their occasional renewal. 

It was formally declared by Henry IV, of France, in reply to the 
supplications of the family of the unfortunate Biron, in favour of 
that disgraced favourite, that " when a person is known to have been 
guilty of high treason, a father could no longer plead for a son, a 
son for a father, a husband for a wife, nor a wife for a husband. "f 
But without going back to such remote times, the fate of the unfor- 
tunate Lally Tollendal exhibits in its strongest colours the severity 
and arbitrary character of the French criminal law. In the year 1766, 
this celebrated soldier was beheaded, on conviction of having betray- 
ed the interests of the king, and those of the French East-India 
Comfiany; and of vexations, exactions, and abuses f authority. 

These vague and (to use a modern phrase) " untangible" accusa- 
tions are all that the public knew of the process which led to his 
condemnation; and the veteran general, a brave and approved ser 
vant of the state, was conducted to the scaffold with a gag in hie 
mouth, for fear he should make any further explanation. As re- 
cently as the year 1762, a Protestant priest was executed, on con- 
viction of having discharged the functions of his ministry; as were 
also three brothers, whose zeal engaged them to attempt his rescue.^ 

Against this mighty mass of frightful abuses, General La Fayette 
appealed in the assembly of the notables, held in the year 1787; 
but they were not effectually attacked, until the meeting of the 
constituent assembly. On the eighth of September, 1789, La 
Fayef.e proposed to the meeting of the commune of Paris, to send 
a deputation to the national assembly, then sitting at Versailles, to 
demand an immediate reform of the criminal jurisprudence, as far. 
at least, as respected its most prominent abuses; to require that the 
accused should be allowed the assistance of counsel; that the pro- 
ceedings of the examination should be public; that the witnesses 
should be publicly confronted with the accused; and that the documents 

* If this practice was not invented by Louis XIII, it was a favourite mea- 
sure, and brought into common use by him and his minister Richelieu. 
+ Intrigue du Cabinet. T. i. p. 120. 
\ Mem. de Malesiierbe, sur les Protestants. 



employed against him should be freely communicated. Even this 
step was not taken, without considerable hesitation; and the excel- 
lent Bailly himself considered it as too precipitate: so little was pub- 
lic opinion formed at that time, on this important point. It was, 
however, with these advantages that the Baron de Bezensal and Mon- 
sieur de Favras met their trial (of whom the latter was the only 
person fiut to death, for fiolitical offences', before the 10th of Augvst^ 
1792); and already the benefits of the change were duly appreciated. 
Monsieur de Seze, at that time president of the tribunal of cassa- 
tion, a person, it is to be observed, well known for his love of the 
old regime, made use of the following observations, in his speech 
on the occasion: — " 1 he public has heard the deposition of the wit- 
ness, all the documents have been read, and ail the interrogations 
have been made in its presence. It is, therefore, as well acquainted 
with the process, as Justice herself. Ah rendons bien graces," he 
continues, u a l'assemblee nationale de ce beau present qu'elle a fait 
a la legislation Franchise! Que d'innocens elle a sauves, d'avance, 
par ce magnifique aecretl"* [Ah, let us thank the national as- 
sembly for the noble present which it has made to French legislation. 
Howmany innocent have been saved in advance by this noble decree.] 

At this period the accused were still tried by the old jurisdictions, 
and by the old law; but in the year 1791, the mode of civil and 
criminal proceedings was entirely changed. The establishment of 
juries in civil matters was even still deemed impossible, and opi- 
nions were divided respecting their constitution in criminal cases. 
One party recommended the adoption of the American and English 
jury, in all its purity, and without the slightest alteration: but the 
most enlightened magistrates, after consultation with some of our 
English lawyers, proposed certain changes; and their opinion pre- 
vailed. The principle of unanimity of the jury was exchanged for 
a majority of ten to two; and this was again altered by Napoleon, to 
a simple majority; with this further addition, that in case of condem- 
nation by a majority of seven to five, the judges had the reconside- 
ration of the verdict; and if the majority of the judges, added to the 
minority of the jury, in favour of the accused, exceeded the minority 
of the judges and the majority of the jury against him, the party was 
then acquitted. 

During the continuance of the republic, there subsisted a grand 
and a common jury, as in England. But Napoleon abolished the 
grand jury, and assigned its functions to the members of the courim- 
fieriale. [The imperial court.] The constituent assembly had 
enacted that the common jury should be formed from lists, made by 
the firocureur syndic of the department; and officer, elected by the 
people. Under the imperial regime, these lists were made by the 
prefet, who was nominated by the emperor. As the law stands at 
present, the prefet forms a list of sixty persons, from which the pre- 
sident of the court selects thirty-six. Their names are then put inte 

*Moniteur, 4 Avril, 1790. 



XIV APPENDIX I. 

an urn, and are drawn one by one; and the court and the prisoner 
have each a right of rejecting them as they arise, without the assign- 
ment of a cause, till their remain but twelve names on the list; and 
with these both parties are obliged to rest satisfied. To serve on a 
jury, the party must be thirty years of age, in possession of his civil 
and political rights, or the whole proceedings are null and void. The 
lists are formed from the electoral college, from the three hundred 
highest rated domiciles [dwelling houses] of the department, the 
administrative functionaries named by the emperor (king), doc- 
tors and licentiates of the four faculties, members of the Institute, 
and other learned societies, notaries, merchants, bankers, &c. paying 
the patent of the two first classes, and from persons enjoying places 
of at least four hundred francs per annum. The penalty for non-at- 
tendance is five hundred francs; for the second offence, one thousand 
francs; and for the third, one thousand five hundred francs; and the 
delinquent is then incapacitated for serving on a jury again; which 
disqualifies him for holding some other lucrative situations. 

At the same time that the constituent assembly changed the mode 
of trial, they mitigated very considerably the severity of the penal 
code. The punishment of the different ranks of citizens, convicted 
of the same offence, was equalized; and all infliction beyond the pri- 
vation of life was abolished. On the motion of Mons. Duport, a de- 
bate at this time took place, on the question of the total abolition of 
capital punishments; a proposition which the abbe Gregoire at all 
times zealously promoted. But another ecclesiastic, more conso- 
nantly with the spirit of priesthood, observed, that capital punish- 
ments have the repeated sanction of the bible! To this uncharitable 
insinuation, Duport opposed the express command of God, in the 
case of Cain, whose offence was the most aggravated injury society 
can sustain. The doctrine, however, did not meet with entire ap- 
probation, and death was awarded as the punishment, in the single 
case of murder.* The amputation of the hand, as an additional pun- 

* At present the Code Penal (though beyond all comparison more mild and 
philosophical than that incongruous and chaotic jumble, the criminal law of 
England) awards capital punishment in the following, and a few other cases. 
For fostering spies 

Treason 

Promotion of civil war 

Public pillaging 

Murder, infanticide, poisoniug 

Theft committed during the night 

by two or more persons conjointly 

with open or concealed arms 

by house-breaking 

by escalade 

with false keys 

under the disguise of public functionaries 

with violence and threats 

Coining 

Forgery of bank bills and public securities 



ishment for paricide. w<ts demanded by a member; but the proposi- 
tion was rejected as a dishonour to the p^nai code. Under the reign 
of Napoleon, this barbarous law was again proposed, by some one of 
the numerous flatterers by whom he was surrounded (for the crime 
of regicide comes within the definition given by the French lawyers 
of this offence): although weak enough to accept of the disgusting 
homage, the em jteror never put the law into execution. Little per- 
haps did he anticipate, that his successors would justify themselves 
at his expense, and plead his law in extenuation, when hit, most 
Christian Majesty should inflict the inhuman and useless penalty 
upon three persons of the lowest class of society (Pegnier, Corbi- 
neau and Tolleron); who, even admitting the reality of the conspi- 
racy, into which they are believed to have been entrapped, were not 
guilty of an immediate attack upon the king's person; and therefore 
came only constructively within the meaning of the enactment. 
Surely their humble station in society, and the inefficiency of their 
means of injuring the state, should have screened them from the ven- 
geance of a prince alive to generosity, or to personal dignity, if 
the necessity for striking terror upon a disaffected population had 
not superseded in his breast all feelings of mercy, or all sentiment of 
contempt. 

The proceedings in the courts of assize are conducted viva voce; 
and the witnesses give testimony in open court. One or more, how- 
ever, of the prisoners may be removed from the court, and examined 
privately by the judge, upon particular points; but he is bound to 
relate the result to the other prisoners, before he can resume the 
proceedings. The fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, children and 
grand-children, husbands or wives, of any of the accused, cannot be 
heard in evidence, if either the prisoner, the procureur- general, the 
civil party, or the accuser, object to their testimony; and tke law is 
the same respecting informers, entitled to a reward upon conviction. 
The accused or his counsel have in all cases the last hearing; and 
consequently liberty to reply to every objection. In the event of ac- 
quital, the accused can obtain damages against the informers (not 
being so ex-omcio) for the calumny he has sustained; and the procu- 
reur-generalis obliged to give up their names. 

In case of conviction of several offences, the law does not allow of 
an accumulation of punishments, but inflicts only that awarded 
against the heaviest of the charges. In both civil and criminal 
cases, the person who loses the cause pays the expenses of the trial, 
as well those incurred by the state, as those of the individual oppo- 
nents. 

The punishment of the guillotine, of which so frightful a use was 
afterwards made, was introduced as a means of diminishing the cor- 

For Forgery of the public official seals 
Suborning of false witnesses 
Castrating-, if death ensue within forty days 
Arson, &c. &c. 



XVi APPENDIX I. 

poral sufferance attendant upon executions, and more especially te 
take from among the people an idea which they had acquired during 
the popular tumults, of doing themselves justice ufion offenders. 

The constituent assembly had established a national court for the 
trial of high treason, formed of judges, chosen from among the 
magistrates of the supreme court of cassation, and of a special jury 
taken by lot from a list made by the electoral assembly of trie de- 
partment. This court could not sit at a less distance from the me- 
tropolis than ninety miles. It was held in the year 1792 at Orleans. 
The party spirit, which raged so furiously at this time, had no influ- 
ence upon its proceedings; and it was not till after the 10th of Au- 
gust, when this court was abolished, that the prisoners were recalled 
to Paris, and were massacred on their way, at Versailles. At this 
period was established the revolutionary tribunal. The Girodins, 
who had contributed to ail the excesses ol this fatal year, had a part 
also in these first steps towards judicial tyranny. But when they 
wished to put a stop to further deviations from freedom, they were 
eagerly persecuted in their turn by the Jacobins; and their trials 
afforded the first instances of the accused or his counsel being stop- 
ped short, and prevented from offering all that could be urged in de- 
fence of the cause. This practice hus again been renewed in the 
trials of Ney, La Bedoyere, and some others, since the return of the 
old dynasty. From the death of the Girodins to the epoch of the 9th 
Thermidor, there is not to be found the slightest trace of justice in 
the judicial proceedings; and scarcely indeed before that of the con- 
stitution of the year III, since the assassins of ail that was respecta- 
ble in France, were themselves very irregularly tried. 

After this dreadful storm, a government strictly republican was 
established. There was instituted, in every department, a civil tri- 
bunal, from Avhich an appeal lay to that of the neighbouring depart- 
ment; and the court of cassation decided appeals upon errors of 
form. Under this jurisprudence, the liberty and prosperity of the 
nation were gradually increasing, when new troubles were excited 
by the enemies of freedom,* and the consequence was the revolution 
of the 18th Fructidor, in which the directory, anticipating their ene- 
mies, made a successful attack upon the national representation. 
The obnoxious members, and the priests, on this occasion were sub- 
jected to an arbitrary deportation; and the emigrants were tried by 
military commissions; but the ordinary civil and criminal proceed- 
ings, between the citizens themselves, remained unchanged until the 
arrival of Buonaparte. Scarcely seated in the consular chair, Na- 

* " Lorsque le gouvernement Anglais, de concert avec les princes Emigre's, 
et tout le parti aristocrate chercha a exciter de nouveaux troubles, en prodi- 
guant des sommes immenses, qui la plupart passe ivnt par les mains de Mons. 
Wickham." MS. presented to the author, by an eminent statesman and con- 
stitutional leader. [When the English government, in conceit with the emi- 
grant princes, and the whole aristocratic party sought to excite new troubles, 
by lavishing immense sums, the greatest part of which passed through the 
hands of Mr. Wickham.') 



poleon made a trial of his power over the senate, by soliciting and 
procuring the deportation of a certain number of Jacobins; a step, 
which was speedily followed by the suppression of the tribunate, the 
only body which by the constitution could address itself to the 
public. 

For the genius of the imperial government, the institution of ju- 
ries was ill adapted; and Napoleon considerably curtailed the extent 
of their jurisdiction. With this view, he abolished entirely the grand 
jury, and assigned its functions to a chamber of the imperial court 
of appeal. The pretence under which this change was effected, 
was that the judges could not make the grand-jurymen understand 
the difference between putting the accused on their trial, and deter- 
mining absolutely the question of their guilt or innocence. Mons. 
Riboud, in his report made to the corps iegisidtif, [legislative body] 
concerning the changes then meditated in the law of juries, observed, 
that, " the best intentioned among them can with difficulty ascer- 
tain the limits of their Junction. Deliberating without the assistance 
of the magistrate, and having the cause only imperfectly before 
them, they fail into errors, often dangerous to the accused, but most 
commonly injurious to society." An argument li*e this, drawn 
from the infant state of the institution, and from the inexperience of 
the people, is at once tyrannical and futile. As in all other human 
affairs, the grand-jury would have gradually formed themselves, by 
practice, and would every year have executed their functions with 
increasing precision. There is, however, a very general prejud.ee 
prevalent in France against juries. They are accused of too great 
a leaning towards the prisoner, of modifying their verdict upon the 
punishment allotted to the crime under consideration, and of acquit- 
ting, even against evidence, in those cases in which they imagine 
the infliction to be too severe. This bias, to a certain extent, exists 
amongst our own jurymen, and is at once beneficial to society, and 
honourable to human nature; for natural feelings, thus rectifying 
the miscalculations of the judgment, counteracts the ordinary ten- 
dency of lawgivers, towards aggravating the penal code, and multi- 
plying too wantonly the causes of capital punishment. 

A more grievous accusation urged against the French jurymen 
is, that they are apt to misinterpret the metaphysical distinction of 
design; and to acquit prisoners taken in the fact, upon the ground 
of a possible absence of guilty intention. Thus, for instance, they 
have determined that the theft was not committed for the purpose of 
injuring the person robbed, but with the intention of procuring 
sustenance for the thief and his family. This error, though it 
betrays the excessive confusion of the simplest moral notions, into 
which a nation may be drawn by the operation of an oppressive 
government and a casuistical religion, is so near the surface, that it 
must necessarily disappear before a very few years of judicial 
experience; at the same time, it evinces great delicacy and suscep- 
tibility of conscience in the jury, who thus hesitate in condemning 
a fellow citizen. It seems therefore a most unfounded and inju- 

c 



xviii APPENDIX I. 

rious reproach cast upon the French nation, that they are too cor- 
rupt and too egoistical, too indifferent to what concerns justice, to 
be entrusted with the functions of a jury. All accusation turns 
upon their bias towards mercy; and no charge is made of a corrupt 
leaning in favour of a rich or a powerful prosecutor. Such a charge, 
if substantiated, would indeed be fatal to the hopes of liberty. For 
it indicates a depravity of feeling, a dullness of mora! tact, and an 
absence of illumination, which are compatible only with a fallen and 
disorganized nation, and evince that it is utterly unfit for the enjoy- 
ment of any free form of constitution. 

That the French people were only too conscientious in their office 
of jurymen, is sufficiently evident in the conduct of Napoleon. He 
felt that this institution, in the hands of his subjects, was no fit in- 
strument for arbitrary power, and he immediately withdrew from 
its jurisdiction the cases, in which 'the safety of the government' 
was concerned, or fiscal rapacity interested to oppress the subject: 
the two particular cases, in which the existence of a jury is most 
specifically connected with the security of the citizen. The courts 
instituted by the emperor, thus to supersede the juries, were, by a 
still greater abuse, formed half of magistrates, and half of military 
commissioners; whose habits of blind obedience, as soldiers, dis- 
qualified them for the fair discharge of civil functions, however high 
their individual feelings of honour, however delicate their sense of 
self-respect. 

At the same time that the jurisdiction of the juries was thus 
circumscribed, the people were deprived of their right of electing 
judges and municipal officers; and thus the formation of the jury 
lists fell into the hands of the prefect, an officer holding place 
immediately from the emperor, and occupying it during pleasure. 
In order still further to disgust the citizens with the office of jury- 
men, it was contrived that they should be detained by its duties for 
very considerable intervals from their ordinary occupations. Decla- 
mations were also made, and works printed by command,* to 
bring the in>titution into disrepute. But notwithstanding every 
effort, the functions which remain for the jurymen to execute are 
still discharged with great probity, humanity, and patriotism. 

During the progress of the revolution, the people gradually 
formed themselves to their duties as citizens. The code criminel 
directs, that none shall be appointed to administrative and judicial 
functions, but such as have satisfactorily discharged their duties as 
jurymen. A report was also directed to be made annually to the 
emperor of the manner in which this branch of administiation was 
conducted; an enactment apparently calculated to purify the justice 
of the country, but too probably concealing the atriere pensee of 
imperial interference with the juryman in the discharge of his 
office. 

* See the work against juries of Mods. Gach, president of the tribunal de 
premiere instance, in the department of Lol, cum multis aliis. 



With every deduction to be made for the oppressions of the latter 
times, the French criminal jurisprudence remains infinitely superior 
to that of the ancient regime. The early revolutionists, whose theo- 
retical notions of government approached nearly to those of the 
British constitution, well understood the defects of the old law; and 
thus commenced the new edifice of their jurisprudence upon such 
sound bases, that it has survived the storms of political change, 
with but little comparative injury, affording ample justificatian of 
the views and principles of those who commenced the struggle for 
liberty. It is still however objected, that the judges, influenced by 
old prejudices, continue to harrass the prisoner with captious ques- 
tions, tending to entrap him into self-inculpations. But a few years* 
experience, and the succession of a fresh generation, will beget 
a different sentiment in the bench, and direct its efforts to the pri- 
mary objects of all trial — the protection ©f innocence. 

While any portion of ihe benefits, thus obtained, are secured to 
the nation, whatever may be the dynasty or government which time 
and circumstances may impose upon it, France will still be a gain- 
er by the revolution, and posterity will lookback with gratitude on 
the courage, devotion and illumination of the national assembly, 
notwithstanding every calamity which uncontrollable circumstances, 
and the opposition of enemies, have entailed on their efforts. 

It was proposed to Lord Erskine, during the peace of Amiens, 
to write a comparative essay on the jurisprudence of England and 
France; and every friend of his species must regret that a man so 
gifted for the task, so enlightened in principle, and so qualified to 
disseminate truth by the beauties of style, should have neglected 
the opportunity of benefitting both nations, and of exalting his own 
reputation. It is not now too late; nor was there ever a period when 
eloquence, like his, was more wanting to illustrate first principles, 
and to recall the people to a sense of those blessings, which free- 
dom infuses even into the minutest details of daily transactions. 

The code civil, or, as it has been called, the code Napoleon, is a 
digest of all the laws, respecting civil procedure, which have been 
passed since the revolution, and forms the standing law of the land. 
In simplicity and equity, it more than rivals the laws of most other 
European states and whenever the arms of France have carried 
their jurisprudence into foreign nations, the inhabitants have very 
uniformly considered themselves as benefitted by the change. 

Besides the alterations already mentioned, Napoleon re-establish- 
ed the tribunals of the arrondissement, and created superior courts 
of appeal, thus forming two degrees of jurisdiction, besides the 
ju.^es de paix,and the courde cassation [The justices of peace and 
the court of cassation.] He re-established also those fiscal tribu- 
nals to try smuggling offences, and other matters relative to the 
perception of the customs, which were among the worst abuses of 
the old regime. 

In the royal charter of June 4th, 1814, which Louis XVIII 
substituted for the more liberal provisions already voted by the 



XX APPENDIX I. 

senate, it has been contrived to slide* the infamous principle of se- 
cret deliberations, which has recently been applied in two proces- 
ses, instituted against persons accused of having provoked the spo- 
liation of the present proprietors of ci-devant church property. 
Napoleon has been justly accused of making too frequent an use of 
that convenient instrument of judicial violence, the council ofwarj, 
but since the second restoration, it has been still more frequently 
employed; and the regulations respectingthe equitable choice of offi- 
cers have been altogether neglected. Another scandal also has been 
introduced by the Bourbons, in multiplying the charges brought 
against the accused; and on their conviction, upon those of the least 
importance, of inflicting the punishment awarded to the most hein- 
ous. This practice was noticed in the chamber of peers by the 
young Due de Brogiic; one of the best and most distinguished pa- 
triots of France. In proof of this abuse, may be quoted the case of 
Marshal Ney, who was accused of having conspired with Buona- 
parte, — of having solicited a command, in order to betray the king, 
of having demanded supplies of money, which he stoic, and of sav- 
ing persuaded the army to go over to the emperor. All these 
charges were fully and entirely rebutted. The only offence brought 
home to him WoS that of having yielded to example, and of having 
been drawn over in the general movement; and for this offence he 
was condemned to death. 

In like manner La Valette was accused of conspiracy, and cor- 
respondence with Napoleon: and was condemned for having too 
soon taken possession of the post-office; for a letter written after 
that epoch; and for a signature, solicited from, him by one of the 
kind's ministers, Monsieur Ferrand; which signature they had the 
cruelty to uv%e against him, as matter of crimination. 

It is a task at once melancholy and revolting, to recapitulate these 
numerous ana aggravated injustices, and to dive into the details of 
error and mistaken policy, which have signalized the re-establish- 
ment of the old dynasty. But the tale is instructive, and its moral 
cannot be placed too frequently nor too prominently before the eyes 
of that nation, which has so powerfully contributed towards placing 
France in its present forced and unnatural position. It has been 
too much, and too long, the habit of Englishmen, to look with an 
envious and jealous eye upon the prosperity of foreign nations, to 
consider every advance made by others, in commerce or in civili- 
zation, as so much lost to ourselves; and blood and treasure have 
been profusely shed, in support of this churlish and most unphi- 
losophical principle. As a commercial nation, our welfare is inti- 

* Art. 64. 

f It is reputable to the French character, that even with this engine it was 
not possible to bring Morcau to the sca/lbld; and that the utmost extent ot 
imperial influence produced only a sentence of two years* imprisonment. 
It is said, however, that the judge, Le Courbc, was subsequently displaced 
for non-compliance in the instance of this trie ! 



raately connected with the prosperity of other nations; for the spirit 
of trade is necessarily ceciprocity; and as a free nation, we are in- 
comroverubly interested in the universal diffusion of the principles 
and practice of liberty. Every link that is added to the chain of 
despotism in Europe shakes the security of our own constitution; 
and both directly, and indirectly, endangers the permanence of our 
liberties. It was against the tyrannical government of Louis XIV, 
against his interference with our infant revolution, that the long 
wars of queen Anne were undertaken and prosecuted: and nothing 
but the most gross delusion, or the most perfect indifference to the 
interests of liberty, can have induced that complacency, with which 
the n?.lion at present regards the revival of principles so inimical 
to human happiness, and of practices so dangerous to its own inde- 
pendence 

The re-establishment of prevotal courts by Louis XVIII, may 
be considered as embracing all that was objectionable in the old 
government, and as placing the seal of tyranny upon criminal pro- 
ceedings. Whatever the despotism of Napoleon had inflicted upon 
the judicature, whatever the tremendous system of police had con- 
trived, was msuflftcie«t for the purposes of the new authorities. 
The sp-c . f the emperor were merciful and just, in corn- 

par: ic prevotal mode of trial; and the manner in which 

it was introduced into the charte is no less singular than cruel. 
" Nui ik pourra etre distrait de ses juges naturels," says this in- 
strument. "II ne pourra en consequence etres cree des commis- 
a et des tribunaux extraordinaires." [No one can be deprived 
of his proper judges — in consequence, extraordinary commissions 
and tribunals cannot be created.] Who would expect after this 
to read, " ne sont pas comprises sous cette denomination les juris- 
dictions prevotales, si leur retablissement est juge necessaire!" 
[Under this denomination the prevotal jurisdictions are not included, 
if their re-establishment is judged necessary.] The establishment 
of such arbitrary courts being the express object, to guard against 
which the article itself was framed, the whole paragraph is a mock- 
ery. Weak and desperate indeed, must be the condition of that 
government, for whose protection the regular courts of justice are 
really insufficient, and whose measures require to be propped by 
violence, and shadowed by concealment. And it may fairly be taken 
as the certain symptom of a foregone corruption, and perversity 
in the administration of public affairs, when such concessions can be 
deemed necessary for the security of the people. 

The law of habeas corpus had been established by the constitu- 
ent assembly, Avith as much precision as in America or in Britain. 
It was suspended during the reign of terror, but was restored by 
the constitution of the year III, and continued to form a part of the 
consular and imperial regime.* 

* See code d ? Insrrucrion Criminelle. Page 134. Chap. hi. The co-ex- 
istence of such a code, and of such a police, is a convincing proof of the \m- 



XX11 APPENBIX I. 

With this institution, it is difficult to conciliate the system of 
police, which has been the subject of so much, and of such just 
obioquy. At the outset of the revolution, the constituent assembly 
had committees of inquiry, to detect conspirators against the new 
order of things, but they bounded their efforts to bringing offenders 
before the regular courts; and of these, one individual only was 
condemned to death. In the reign of terror, arbitrary arrestations, 
and massacres in prison, were numerous, and have become matter 
of dreadful history. Similar events were likewise brought about, 
by the re-action of the royalists. The arrests which took place 
under the Directory were chiefly of priests and of emigrants; but 
to this epoch must be referred the nomination of a specific minister 
of police. The complete establishment of the existing system was 
the joint work of Napoleon, Fouche, and Savary; and they gave 
the detestable institution a perfection, by which the royalists have 
abundantly profitted. To explain the existence of this system un- 
der any revolutionary dispensation, it must be recollected, that the 
liberty of the press was first annihilated — that the jurisdiction of 
juries was abridged— the people deprived of the nomination of mu- 
nicipal officers — the legislative body of the privilege of discussion; 
and that the sittings of the senate were secret. Every thing was 
thus placed at the mercy of a military chief, whose authority rested 
not so much upon the submission of the people, as upon the con- 
duct of the sovereigns of Europe; who, by their policy in provoking 
hostilities, and their subsequent errors in conducting the contest, 
rendered him at once a necessary and an uncontrollable master of 
the destinies of the country. Arbitrary arrets were not however 
acknowledged officially, until the ordinance was made by Napole- 
on's council of state, respecting prisons and state prisoners. 

During the epoch of the first restoration, the force of opinion, 
preliminary caution, and the weakness of the government, gave a 
greater degree of liberty to the subject, than had been enjoyed 
during the last part of the reign of Napoleon. But the evident 
tendency of the court towards arbitrary measures, to a complete 
counter-revolution, and the re-establishment of every ancient abuse, 
utterly disgusted the people; and was the real cause of the favourable 
reception, which the emperor experienced on his return from Elba. 

The habitual tendency of Napoleon towards despotic measures, 
was evinced on many occasions, during the celebrated hundred 
days; but his necessity for popularity, together with the patriotism 
of the chamber of representatives, imposed a considerable restraint 
upon tins predilection. Upon the second restoration, the project 
of police presented by the minister to the chambers, and by them 
passed into a law, comparable alone with the conventional decree 
against suspected persons, exceeds every other measure that has 
yet been ventured for the subjugation of the people. 

potence of the dead letter of the law, where the vivifying spirit of resistance 
to oppression does not animate the people. 



The law of confiscation of property, enacted by the convention, 
against the emigrants, was abolished by the articles presented by 
the senate to Louis XVIII, and confirmed by that prince. The 
emperor on his return refused to admit this new enactment into his 
" acte constitutionel;" but the chamber of representatives in their 
first sittings declared that confiscation was abolished; and a law to 
that effect, proposed on the twenty-first of June, would have passed 
on the same day, if the news of the battle of Waterloo had not ar- 
rived, which, with the return of Napoleon, with the intent to dissolve 
the chambers, and to declare himself dictator, turned the attention 
of the assembly to other subjects. 

It is a consolatory reflection for humanity, that where liberty has 
impressed her footstep, however transient may have been her pas- 
sage, its print is with difficulty effaced: and however absolutely 
despotism may have afterwards been established, the forms of jus- 
tice will remain sufficiently prominent to produce an easy regene- 
ration, whenever the favourable moment arrives for re-establishing 
a free constitution. Should such a moment return in France, should 
the habitual tendencies of the reigning dynasty be compelled to 
give way before the spirit of the age, a very few alterations would 
be sufficient to restore the judicial rights, which were vindicated 
during the first pure moments of the revolution of 1789. All that 
would be required in a well-organized government, would be to 
restore to the people the nomination of the juges de jiaix, [justices 
of peace,] and municipal officers; from the latter of these, to 
choose by lot three or more persons, destined to form the jury 
lists; to restore the grand jury; to give the judges a more inde- 
pendent existence; to soften still further the severity of the penal 
code; to suppress the place of minister of police; to confirm the 
liberty of the press; abolish all special commissions; and give the 
existing laws in favour of personal liberty a free course and execu- 
tion; and the nation would then enjoy every advantage necessary 
for an independent people. 

Notwithstanding that the constituent assembly abolished the 
venality of judicial offices, another abuse has been suffered to re- 
main, which might also have been removed with advantage, — the 
permission, or rather compulsion, of the parties engaged in a law- 
suit, to visit their judges, and give an explanation of the particulars 
of their case. This explanation they are in fact seldom able to 
give; nor would the judge pay much attention to such ex jiarte 
statements It does not, however, appear that either before or 
since the revolution, this practice gave rise to pecuniary abuses. 
How far the influence of female persuasion or of personal vanity 
might prevail, it is not easy to determine. The judges were often 
young men; and the most handsome and highly born women that 
could be procured to solicit, were usually selected to pay the cus- 
tomary visit; and every person of rank or consequence, connected 
with the party, left his tickets with the judge, prior to the com- 
mencement of the trial 



X*1V APPENDIX I. 

It has been commonly imagined that in popular assemblies, the 
members of the bar would have a great advantage; that accustomed 
to business, and habituated to public speaking, they would naturally 
wrest all authority from persons of more retired manners. This 
does not, however, seem to have been the case in France; for 
though a very great proportion of lawyers found a place in the re- 
presentative assemblies, they were far from exclusively occupying 
the tribune. Thus, in the constituent assembly, on the same 
bench with Thou re, le Chepalier, or Barnave, who were lawyers 
pf most distinguished eloquence, might be seen Mirabeau, Cler- 
mont, Tonnere, Cazales, who did not belong to the bar. Indeed, 
those who were most eminent in the courts, were far from being 
the most distinguished in the senate; and the same remark has been 
made of many English barristers, who have obtained seats in the 
house of commons. Target, who was at the head of the French 
advocates, figured but as a very secondary character in the consti- 
tuent assembly; nor does it appear that the legal corps exercised 
the least undue influence in any of the popular assemblies of the 
revolution. 

If, indeed, the peculiar cast of pursuit, and the narrow point of 
view, to which a lawyer is obliged to confine himself, be considered, 
it will appear that his habits are the reverse of those requisite for 
the deliberation of legislative discussion. The inquiry of the law- 
yer is confined to the consideration of what is established, and his 
ingenuity is exerted in bending the existing laws to particular in- 
terests; while the legislator is compelled to extend his view to what 
ought to be; and from an enlarged and philosophical view of man- 
kind, to convert the general reasons of the social bond into rules 
of practical application. Perhaps the most prevailing cause of the 
incongruity of our English law, is the confiding to lawyers the bu- 
siness of forming draughts of the proposed acts of parliament; by 
which, in the subtlety of special pleading, general principles may 
easily be placed out of sight. 

At the time of the author's residence in Paris, two changes were 
spoken of as likely to be made in the French jurisprudence. The 
one was the abolition of the cour de cassation, the other that of the 
jury. How far such expectations depended upon the known dislike 
of the emigrants and court to every thing originating from the re- 
volution, or how far upon particular reasons arising out of the insti- 
tutions themselves, it is impossible to say. The cour de cassation, 
exercising functions formerly discharged by the king's council, may 
perhaps be considered as an usurpation, tending to curtail the power 
of the court over judicial proceedings. It seems, therefore, not im- 
probable that the existence of so obnoxious an institution may be 
precarious. But no plausible reason can be found for attacking the 
jury; since the power of appointing special and prevotal courts, to 
try any ca^e between Uvt king and his subjects, precludes all risk 
of an eveit (in England so unpleasant to ministerial feelings), the 
difference of opinion between a jury and an attorney-general 



Should the abolition of the revolutionary forms of justice be de- 
creed; and the assize courts exchanged for the ancient institutions, 
the allied conquerors of France, by imposing the paternal govern- 
ment on that country, will have done the greatest injury to mankind, 
that the page of modern history has yet recorded. Still, however, 
it is to be hoped, that the French ministry have neither the ^ ish 
nor the courage to attempt so nefarious an act: but that the trial 
by jury, that plant, indigenous to England, may in foreign countries 
lose the sickly character of an exotic, and taking firm root in the 
soil, afford the protection of its shadow to all the nations of civilized 
Europe. 



APPENDIX. No. II. 



OF THE FINANCE OF FRANCE 

Atf7'S e7reil* Trefrov fa xvXtvfaro. 

Sic omnia fatis 
In pejus, mere, ac retro relapsa refcrri. Virgil. 

The affairs of nations have become so immediately regulated by 
the condition of their finances, and their power so closely circum- 
scribed by their fiscal embarrassments, that a short sketch of the 
present state of France, in this particular, cannot fail to afford man) 
interesting and important considerations. To the eye of the philo- 
sopher, there is a necessary and immediate connexion between the 
fiscal and the moral condition of the people; and the patriot deplores, 
in an extravagant and lavish expenditure, the decay of industry, 
the corruption of manners, and the degradation of the physical ener- 
gies of the nation. In a country where wealth, population, morals, 
liberty, are but secondary and subaltern considerations to the leading- 
interest of multiplying taxation, and of wringing the last possible 
shilling for the support of the government, the financial regulations 
of foreign states are peculiarly instructive. For though such pic- 
tures for the most part afford very nearly a reflected image of do- 
mestic distresses and privations, yet ista commemoratio quasi exfiro- 
batio est, the bare narration of the facts is their condemnation, and 
leads to salutary reflection upon the analogous condition of circum- 
stances at home. 

The direct taxes, which form the basis of French finance, are 
four — a land tax, a personal tax, a tax on doors and windows, and a 
tax upon the exercise of trades and professions. 

Imfiot Fancier, or Land Tax. 

When the national assembly abolished the then existing system 
of taxation, they introduced the land tax, as a permanent source of 
revenue; and fixed its amount at one fifth of the net produce of 
the soil. This tax bears upon land of all descriptions, except that 
which is national property. In its assessment parks and chateaux 
pay according to the extent of ground they occupy, valued as land 
of the first quality. Houses are taxed upon the scale of their actual 
rent, one-fourth being deducted for repairs: but buildings occupied 
in the storing and manipulation of agricultural produce, pay only 
upon the value of the land on which they stand. Mills, manufac- 
tories, and other similar buildings (usines), arc allowed a more con- 



FINANCE. 3LXVH 

siderable deduction, and they pay only upon two-thirds of the gross 
rent, on account of the great wear and tear of their materials. In 
these cases the ground landlord pays for the soil, and the occupant 
the assessment on the building. Woods pay according to the value 
of their annual cuttings, which, in France, are universally regulated 
by law, for the purpose cf ensuring a constant and perpetual supply 
of the national fuel. Meadows and vineyards are assessed on their 
actual products, as are arable land, pasturage, heaths, &c Mines 
are valued according to the superficies which covers them — a most 
extraordinary and unequal valuation. 

For the purpose of collecting this tax, there is constructed in 
every commune a schedule of the different parcels, into which the 
land is divided, with their respective values. From this a second 
roil is formed, in which all the articles in the same section, belong- 
ing to one proprietor, are thrown together; and the different items, 
when summed up, determine the proportion in which that proprietor 
is to be taxed. 

When the budget is settled for the year, the aggregate produce 
of the land tax of the whole kingdom is laid at a fixed sum, and 
this sum is divided among the several departments, according to a 
permanent scale. The quota, thus ascertained, of each department, 
is by a similar arrangement divided amongst its several arrondis- 
sements, and the contingent, of each arrondissement among its com- 
ponent communes. And lastly, the tax to be levied on the com- 
mune is assessed upon the different proprietors, according to the 
net value of the articles, which stand opposite their name in the 
second schedule. 

This mode of collection, though at first sight sufficiently equitable, 
is, in fact, very inadequate to the equal partition of the public bur- 
den. In order to effect a just distribution, it would be necessary to 
found it upon a general survey of the kingdom, drawn up with 
fidelity and skill, and renewed from time to time, to accommodate 
it to the actual state of the country, which must be constantly 
changing. Instead of this, the ratio in which the department pays 
is formed upon the schedules of its arrondissements; these are form- 
ed from those of their several cummunes; and in forming the com- 
munal schedules, it is manifest that interest, intrigue, and cunning, 
must incessantly operate to falsify the returns. In fact, every step 
of the process is vitiated with the same result, as each commune, 
arrondissement, and department, is alike interested to shift the bur- 
den, as much as possible, from themselves, and place it upon others. 
A still greater source of inequality will be found in the varying na- 
ture of the soil, and consequent expense of working it, and in the 
comparative facility of land and water carriage for the transport of 
its products. 

The land tax, originally laid at two hundred and forty millions, 
was then estimated at one-fifth of the net rent of the kingdom. 
After the cessation of the irregularities, which the fluctuation in the 
value of the paper currency had produced, in the year between 



XXV1U APPENDIX II. 

1797-8, (an. 6) the fonder tax was laid at two hundred and twenty- 
eight millions, and in the year 98-9 (an. 7) at two hundred and ten 
millions, exclusive of ten millions charged on the provinces newly 
united to the empire. During the reign of Napoleon it was not 
increased, except by the increase of territory, and by the imposition 
of what are called " centimes additionnelles," (a per-centage upon 
the original assessment) which however has eventually amounted to 
nearly a fifth of the principal. For the year 1816, the principal (on 
account of the loss of territory) was reduced to oBe hundred and 
seventy-two millions, with an imposition of centimes, amounting to 
sixty per cent. Of these centimes, thirty-eight are levied for the 
extraordinary service of the year, seventeen for communal and de- 
partmental expenses (analogous to our county rates), and five cen- 
times are applicable to the incidental expenses and local necessities 
of the several communes. 

The whole amount of this tax, exclusive of the expense of collec- 
tion, &c. is 275,412,200 francs for the ordinary and extraordinary 
service of the year. 

Ulmfiot Mobilier^ or Personal Tax. 

This tax, which was imposed at the same time as the land tax, 
was designed to be a supplement to it, and was calculated to affect 
all descriptions of property, exempt from the operation of the other. 
It consists of four separate portions; the first of which is a species 
of capitation, founded on an enrolment of all persons having a domi- 
cile, as well of those who from poverty are exempt, as of those who 
pay their quota of taxation; and the sum demanded is equal to three 
days' labour of the whole population. The second portion consists 
of a tax on male and female servants, according to a graduated scale 
of numbers: the third is a tax on pleasure horses and mules: and 
the fourth is a house-tax, in which, the habitation being taken as a 
ground of presumption, respecting the personal property of the occu- 
pant, his real property is admitted as a cause of deduction in form- 
ing the calculation. The extreme uncertainty of thesetaxes, which 
afford such inaccurate bases for collection, has caused it to be di- 
minished one half, soon after its first imposition, at which rate (with 
the exception of the centimes additionnelles) it has remained ever 
since. Its produce for 1816 is taken at 27,289,000 fr. 

The mode of assessing this tax is to the last degree complex; 
and it is calculated to cover great vexations. The sum laid in the 
budget is first distributed amoug the several departments; and to 
meet this demand, the average value of three days' labour in each 
department is multiplied by one-sixth of the total of its population: 
this sum is first levied as the " cotte personelle," and its produce is 
deducted from the gross contingent. 

Next, the actual amount of the sumptuary taxes on servants and 
horses, chargeable on the department, is levied and deducted, as 
also are certain other sums stopped on account of taxation from the 



salaries of public officers; and the remainder is assessed on the rent 
of houses, subject to deductions on account of the real property of 
their respective inhabitants. 

In levying this last portion, the whole remainder is charged upon 
the whole rental of the houses in the department, and the contingent 
of each proprietor is fixed, according to a graduated scale, on the 
rent of his abode. In this scale, houses of less than 150 fr. per annum 
are exempt; above that value the tax is a per-centage heavier, in 
proportion as the rent amounts to larger sums: about five francs 10 
centimes is the ordinary assessment on 150 francs of rent; but in some 
departments, that rate being insufficient to complete the contingent, 
the tax falls a little more severely. With respect to the stoppages 
on salaries, they must never exceed one-twentieth; nor can the per- 
sonal taxes exceed one-eighteenth of the sum on which they are 
charged;, it should seem, however, that they have never reached this 
proportion. From this scheme it is evident, that the personal tax, 
though nominally three days' labour upon the whole population, is 
in fact but one-sixth of the sum, and that the remaining five-sixths 
is in reality a tax upon houses: in fact, the whole is a species of pro- 
perty tax, since the exemptions of the poor are made good by the 
rich. Both the u cotisation personelle," and the duty on houses, are 
assessed by a board of commissioners in an arbitrary manner, ac- 
cording to the more or less of " swelling port," which the house- 
holder exhibits — that is, according to the size of his house, the splen- 
dor of his equipage, and the number of his domestics. 

In Paris, and some other great cities, the mode of collection dif- 
fers; and instead of the operose process above described, the whole 
contingent is assessed at once upon the houses; the total amount 
however is determined upon the same principles, as in the rest of the 
kingdom. 

The centimes additionnelles for the year 1816 amount to 70; 48 for 
the extraordinary service of the year; 12 for departmental expenses; 
5 to the communes; and 5 to be levied incidentally. 

The whole amounts to 46,39 1,300 francs, or, without the centimes 
additionnelles, 27,289,000 francs. 

Tax on Doors and Windows, 

This tax also is in some measure a supplement to the land tax, 
being intended to meet the inequality of its bearing upon the habita- 
tions of the rich and of the poor. It is levied according to a tariff. In 
the year 1789, in Paris, 

fr. cents. 

Every porte-cochere paid 17 69 

Every street door and window on the ground floor, 

entre sol. 1st and 2nd story 170 

For the door and window of a house, not having- more 

than two opening's -----.--- 57 
Every window above the 2nd floor 71 



XXX APPENDIX II. 

This tax, originally fixed at 12,892,000 francs, bears for the year 
1816 an addition of 60 cents, additionneiies, which makes the amount 
19,662,400 francs. 

Ulmjiot dea Patentes^ or Tax on Industry. 

A tax upon industry existed before the revolution; and notwith- 
standing its impolitic and odious character, it was not rejected from 
the financial schemes of the national assembly; so slowly do sound 
notions, respecting even the dearest interests of humanity, find their 
way among large bodies of men. The amount being fixed by the 
legislature, the assessment is made partly by a fixed rate, assigned 
according to a certain classification of tcades, which varies in dif- 
ferent places, and partly by a proportionate tax, levied on the rent of 
the buildings occupied in conducting the business, and generally 
amounting to one-tenth. 

The sums thus raised seem very arbitrarily and unequally pro- 
portioned. According to a little pamphlet of instructions, published 
for the use of the inhabitants of Paris, in the year 1789 (the nearest 
document I could procure on the subject), the droit fixe [fixed taxj 
paid by bankers was 500 francs, by coach-masters 200 francs. Pub- 
lic exhibitions paid one night's performance, calculated upon the 
capacity of the house and the prices of admission: pedlars paid half 
the tax of stationary merchants occupied in the same business. The 
other trades are divided into seven classes, arranged according to a 
principle, which it would be very difficult to divine. The following 
is a specimen of some few of the trades included in each class. 

1st Class. — Agents, timber merchants, wholesale traders, See. pay 
300 fr. 

2d Class. — Apothecaries, architects, jewellers, brewers, drapers, 
clockmakers, &c. pay 100 fr. 

3d Class. — Starchmakers, innkeepers, shoemakers, butchers, 
billiard-table keepers, coach and cartmakers, lace merchants, drug- 
gists, keepers of hotels garnis [furnished lodging houses] (besides 
one-fortieth of rent), tennis-court keepers, Sec. pay 75 fr. 

4th Class. — Hardware-sellers, accoucheurs, public bath keepers, 
retail wood merchants, brick-makers, keepers of circulating libra- 
ries, hatters, surgeons, milliners, curiosity dealers, artificial florists, 
booksellers (second-hand booksellers one half only), physicians, sur- 
veyors, Sec. pay 50 fr. 

5th Class. — Barometer-makers, boat-builders, stocking weavers 
(having more than five looms), gold-beaters, lime-burners, chocolate- 
sellers, musical instrument sellers, Sec. 40 fr. 

It is unnecessary to give further examples of the extreme oddity 
and apparent caprice, with which the different trades are arranged; 
it is sufficient to add, that the sixth class pay 30 fr. the seventh 20 fr. 

Various modifications have, from time to time, been made in this 
tax, for the sake of rendering it less oppressive. In some instances 
the fixed portion is alone paid, in others the proportionate tax is 



merely lessened. Sometimes also the individual is taxed, according 
to the schedule of the class below that of his actual occupation. The 
original assessment of the tax on patents was 15,460,000 francs: it 
is more than doubled by the imposition of 1 1 5 centimes additionnelles, 
which raises it to 33,144,400 fr. 

The sum total of the revenue from the direct taxes then is 

Francs 

2SETT : : : : : *2#ffl ™>™>™ 

?= d Widows- - . 19,662,400 j ^^ 

374,610,300 
From this sum is to be deducted one-fif- } 

tieth on the score of expenses, non-pro- > 7,492,206 
ductiveness, &c. ) 

And the net produce will be Fr. 367,1 18,094 



Throughout the whole part of this taxation, there are manifested 
a great inexpertness and complexity of system. The money granted 
not being an estimated but a fixed sum, necessitates its distribution by 
a fixed ratio among the departments, communes, and sections, which 
never can be done with any thing like an approximation towards 
equality or justice; since the value either of land or money cannot 
be equal in all parts of so large an empire. The personal tax also 
beingcomposedofa fluctuating and of a fixed quota, must be collected 
with an enormous delay and expense; and the house is any thing but 
an adequate representative of the wealth of the inhabitants. The tax 
on patents, or licenses for carrying on trades, is every way objection- 
able; the denomination of the trade being no test of the value of the 
concern, even when modified by the proportional part of the rate, or 
what may be considered as the shop tax. A working jeweller, in a 
miserable garret, may earn more than a carpenter, who occupies a 
spacious work shop A milliner in the Rue Vivienne, the Bond 
street of Paris, will gain an hundred times more, than if she lived in 
an obscure quarter of the town; and under these circumstances, if 
she pays five times more rent for her house in the first than in the 
second situation, her tax will still be twenty times less than is propor- 
tionate on her capital and returns. But the principle itself is most 
ruinous, in as much as it cramps the industry of the poor, and pre- 
vents them from undertaking enterprizes, which, while they raise the 
individual, enrich the state. 

Of the indirect T&xes. 

The indirect taxesof France are under the control of a director-gene- 
ral; they are of three different species, monopolies, licenses, and duties. 



XXXI! APPENDIX II. 

The manufacture of tobacco is almost the only considerable mo- 
nopoly at present in the hands of the government; and they would do 
well to abandon it to the people, as they would infallibly gain more 
by the simple excise, than they can by its manufacture. A company 
of individuals, having competition to support, will always produce a 
cheaper commodity, and consequently create more abundant con- 
sumption, than the government, w*hose servants have no direct inte- 
rest in being diligent or economical. Tobacco in France is a detes- 
table commodity; and though at present more universally used than 
in England, would meet with a much greater consumption, if the 
merchant were allowed to make his own market. Under the exist- 
ing laws, the culture of the plant is made a considerable artricle of 
agricultural produce; and the importation of foreign tobacco is pro- 
hibited, except in such quantities as the royal works require, for the 
manufactory of their superior snuffs, &c. But since the soil and cli- 
mate of France are not so well adapted to the nature of the plant, as 
those of America, the result of this prohibition is to deprive the sub- 
ject the use of a good article, to diminish the total consumption, and 
to annihilate the importation duty, which could be made a fruitful 
source of revenue; while the farmer is encouraged to direct his in- 
dustry in a channel ill-adapted to the soil, and his movements are 
embarrassed, by a multiplicity of restrictive and penal laws. 

Before a single plant of tobacco can be raised, an express permis- 
sion must be obtained from the controller of indirect taxes, and this 
permission is not given for a smaller quantity than twenty " ares" 
[about half an English acre.] The contravention of this law is 
punishable by the destruction of the crop, at the expense of the 
cultivator, together with a line of fifty francs for every hundred feet 
of plantation, if in an open country, or of one hundred and fifty 
francs, when the ground is inclosed with walls. The calculated 
produce must also be registered. 

The number of acres to be cultivated for home consumption, is 
regulated by the prefect of the department, at the suit of the direc- 
tor-general of indirect taxes; and this quantity is divided among 
the respective applicants. The growers for exportation are obliged 
to find sureties of the exportation of the crop, before they can obtain 
a license, if they are not themselves known to be solvent. The crop 
also cannot be removed, without a permit. 

The tendency of these odious restrictions is to increase, beyond 
measure, the price of the produce, by the increased expense of cul- 
ture, to multiply temptations to smuggling, to check improvements, 
and to corrupt morals. The answer to all these objections is, that 
the monopoly with its licences, permits, &c, produces 35 000,000 fr. 

Salt is another commodity, whose manufacture is subject to a li- 
cense, but the abominable abuses of the gabelle no longer subsist, 
which formerly subverted every principle of morality and of feel- 
ing, in order to punish the offences of smugglers. This impost is 
valued at 38,000,000 francs, without reckoning the royal salt-works 
termed salines a" est, [salt-works of the east,] which are under an 
especial government. 



FINANCE. XXXlli 

Wines, distilled spirits, and beer, or a very considerable arti- 
cle of revenue, consisting in licenses to fabricate, licenses for sale, 
and in duties levied at the entrance of large cities, communes, &c. 
The licenses vary, ac curding to the size of the town or district, in 
which the business is conducted. The following extract will exhi- 
bit both the mode and extent of this variation. 




f In communes of - - - - - 4,000 souls - - - - 

from 4 to 6,000 

from 6 to 10,000 .... 

from 10 to 15,000 

(^ And so on, increasing- to 50,000 - - - - 

C In certain populous departments, specifically named 
•? In others, less profitable ----__. 

( And in all the rest •• 

Distillers universally pay ---------.. 

Wholesale liquor merchants universally pay - - - - ■ 

Cardmakers are also subject to a license of - ----- 



Retailers 
of excised 
liquors. 



Brewers. 



francs. 



10 

12 
20 
50 
30 
20 
10 
50 
50 



The duty on the entry of wine in barrels varies in different depart- 
ments, for which purpose the departments are arranged in a tabu- 
lar form into four classes. 

The following is the tariff of the duties on wines, spirits, &c. 













OS'S 

— 13 


"o 


T3"o 


c 

H 








g 


as 


00 • 






.a -3 


JS 




£> 






S o 
— .a 


M 


°£ 


li 




THE HECTOLITRE OF 


£5 




£~ 


■°-a 


POPULATION OF 




*J 










WINE IN BARRELS. 




if 




COMMUNES. 




S as 


a. 














£ s> 










e" 






In Departments of the 


"3 £_: 


u 








1st 


2nd 


3d 


4th 




*£ 






Class 


Class 


Class 


Class 


X&% 


U 


co bcH 


a 


In communes 


















containing- — from 


fr. ct 


fr. Ct 


tr.ct 


fr.ct 


fr. ct 


fr.ct 


fr.ct 


fr.ct 


2 to 4,000 souls 


55 


70 


85 


1 


1 15 


35 


1 40 


2 10 


4— 6,000 


85 


1 


1 15 


I 30 


1 70 


45 


2 10 


3 15 


6—10,000 


1 15 


1 35 


1 55 


1 75 


2 25 


65 


2 50 


3 80 


10—15,000 


1 40 


1 70 


2 


2 25 


2 85 


85 


3 40 


5 10 


15—20,000 


2 


2 25 


> 45 


2 80 


4 


1 15 


4 90 


7 35 


20—30,000 


2 80 


3 10 


3 40 


3 80 


5 60 


1 55 


7 


10 50 


30—50,000 


3 70 


4 10 


4 60 


5 10 


7 30 


2 10 


9 30 


13 90 


50,000 & upwards 


4 60 


5 1C 


5 50 


6 3CJ 


9 301 


2 80 


11 80 


17 60 



^:s°s 


acS^- a 




fe-J 


It 1.1 


"£,"3 3"S 


5 t. o ^:r 


rtS2£S 


fr.ct 


2 80 


4 20 


5 10 


6 80 


9 80 


14 


18 60 


23 60 



Note. — The hectolitre contains 107,375 Paris pints, each pint containing 
4,695 cubic inches. :.f the English pint contain 28,875 cubic inches, the 
hectolitre is nearly equal to twenty-two gallons. 

e 



APPENDIX II. 



Besides the above duties, spirituous and fermented liquors are 
subject to an additional duty on each removal, called the droit de 
circulation, of which the following is the tariff on each hectolitre. 





Wine in wood. 






& 


£ 














O 


Q 


en 
0) 


a '-3 




i the De- 
the border- 
it only. 


O o 


3 




o 


00 

~d 


e 

bo 

Q 

CD 


3 c5 




m DEPART- 


5 to 

a 


CQ 


0H 


X! . 
° be 


3* © 


» 


- 2 
o 


MENTS. 






.2 


a 




o 




a c 


O) o 


a 


IS 


**• 


4) 


q 


§•3 




T3 0) O 


o +3 C 




Q 


<y 




-3;,,' 




«EO 








x> 


ri 






£ *> 










O 


°C '5 




0) S-H.-J 


i^ 2 
5^ S 






1 


o 


s 






C^ 


ti 






GO 


s 




Q 




fr. ct. 


fr. ct. 


fr. ct. 


fr. ct. 


fr. ct. 


fr. ct. 


fr. ct. 


fr. ct. 


Of the 1st Class 


40 


o 6o : 


} 












2nd do. 
3rd do. 


50 
60 


75 f 
90 ( 


> 5 


20 


1 80 


2 50 


3 20 


8 


4th do 


1 


1 20 ' 


I 













The droit d'entre is collected at the entrance of towns, along with 
the duties, on all articles of consumption, which are termed octroi. 
The perception of internal customs having been abolished at the re- 
volution, their revival, like that of all other abuses, took place insi- 
diously. The charitable and other institutions of the several com- 
munes, which were supported by the communal lands, being left 
without resources, by the sale of those lands, the people were insti- 
gated to request the imposition of a duty, or octori, de beneficence. 
These collections were placed under the government of the com- 
mune, and applied strictly to local uses. But when the people had 
been sufficiently tampered with, and this system was carried as far 
as it would go, the who*e produce was transferred to the controllers 
of the droits re unis (or, as they are called at present, of the impots 
indirects), with the exception of a small sum to be applied to the 
original purpose; and thus they have been converted into a part of 
the ordinary revenue of the state. 

Besides the above taxes, the government of the impots indirects 
have the administration of some others, such as navigation dues, and 
tolls, stamp duties on various manufactured goods, especially that on 
playing-cards. The state also enjoys a monopoly of the paper em- 
ployed in the manufacture of cards. These united duties, exclusive 
of tobacco and salt, amount to 67,350,000 fr., so that the whole indi- 
rect taxes amount to 140,350,000 fr. 



Of the Domaine, and other Revenues of the State. 

The real property of the state may be divided into that which be- 
longs to the king, and which is attached to the state in particular. 

The crown property is of two kinds, ordinary and extraordinary; 
the first consists of lands attached to the king or his family, under 
the title of appanage. Of all the princes of the blood, the duke of 
O -'leans alone has preserved any portion of this description of pro- 
perty, the fortune of the others being derived from money paid from 
the civil list, Sec. &c. The king's domain consists of the palaces, 
chateaux, parks, gardens, and all other grounds and buildings sub- 
servient to his necessities cr pleasures. 

The extraordinary domain includes such possessions as the crown 
holds in trust, accidentally or transitorily, for public purposes, for 
endowments of institutions, Sec. 

The domain of the state is real or constructive. The real estate 
consists of woods, forests, the ground upon which stand fortresses, 
magazines, canals and nayagable rivers paying duties, public build- 
ings, mines, worked at the public expense (such are particularly the 
saltmines called de Test). 

The woods and forests (under an especial board of controul) pro- 
duce annually ~0.000,u00 francs. 

The constructive domain consists of those duties, which are levied 
upon the administration of justice, the registering of deeds, the suc- 
cession of property, the preservation of mortgaged property, upon 
receipts and bills of exchange, and generally upon all stamped paper. 
The whole amounting to 1 14,000,000 francs. Under this head also 
are included all establishments of public utility, calculated and ar- 
ranged tc produce a revenue. 

The customs or duties on import, export, bonding and transit, to- 
gether with confiscations and seizures, in the whole form the very 
small sum of 40,000,000 francs. 

Under the head of miscellanies in the budget, are included. 

1st. The salt mines of the east, which vary from one to one and a 
half, and two million francs per annum. 

2d. The profits of the mint never exceed two or three hundred 
thousand francs. 

3d Tne manufacture of powder and salt-petre, and the exclusive 
sale of gunpowder for sporting, may be estimated at the same 
sum. 

4th. The administration of post-office, posting, and stagecoach- 
es, amounts from twelve to fifteen million francs. 

5th. The lottery produces twelve million francs. This abomina- 
ble tax upon industry and morality is constantly in action, in the 
different cities of the empire; and it is raised from the tears and 
blood of its deluded victims and their families. It is supposed to 
act a very principal part among the causes of suicide, a crime re- 
markably frequent in France. 



APPENDIX II. 



The whole ordinary revenue of the state then amounts to, 



Direct taxes 

* Twelve centimes additionnelles 

Domaines and registrations 

Woods and Forests 

Salt 

Miscellanies 

Indirect taxes 

Tobacco 

Customs 



The ordinary expenses are 
Which leaves a surplus of 



Francs. 

223,174,420 
23,930,520 

114,000,000 
20,000,000 
35,000,000 
29,000,000 
67,350,000 
38,000,000 
20,000,000 

570,454,940 
548,252,520 

22,202,420 



Among the ordinary expenses may be noticed the following 
sums: 

Francs. 

Debt, annuities, and pensions - - 125,500,000 

Civil list - - - 25,000,000 

Royal family, including- one million voted March, 1816 9,000,000 

Chamber of peers - - - 2,000,000 

— Deputies - - 700,000 

War department - - - 180,000,000 

Marine (and invalids, 1 ,900,000) - - 48,000,000 

f Police - - - 1,000,000 

Such is then the budget for the year 1816, as far as regards its 
ordinary expenses and means: it remains to give a short statement 
of the extraordinary part. 

The charges of the state, arranged under this head, consist of 
140,000,000 francs, of contributions to the allies, the support of one 
hundred and fifty thousand foreign troops, 1 30,000,000 francs; mo- 
ney paid to the departments for advances for clothing and equip 
ment of the foreign soldiers, and money distributed among the dis- 
tricts which had suffered by the war, 8cc. 8cc. making a total of 
290,800,000 francs! "les allies sont vraiment de tres chers amis!" 
[The allies are really our dear friends ] To meet this enormous ex- 
pense, which lays an additional burden of more than one-half upon 
the people, the centimes additionnelles are continued from 1815. 

* Levied on the fifty centimes additionnelles to the land and property taxes 
of 181 5, and destined to departmental expenses. 

f About forty thousand sterling; very little, indeed, for the conduct of so 
complex a machine. The subaltern agents must be ill-paid, according- to 
this estimate, even if not very numerous. It may therefore be doubted, 
whether the system of espionage really be brought very generally into the 
bosoms of families, as it is pretended. 



FINANCE. XXXVI 

First. — 38 centimes additionnelles on the land-tax, Cents, 

personal and moveable taxes; 10 cents on doors and 
windows; and 5 cents on patents, deduction being 
first made for deficiencies . - - 76,283,181 

Rxtra Resources. 

110 cents on patents, 50 cents on doors and windows, and 

10 cents on personal and moveable taxes - 24,282,540 

Additional caution money, advanced by persons holding- 
official situations, as security for their good conduct, and 
for which they receive interest. This sum, therefore, 
is in the nature of a loan - - 50,633,000 

Additional stoppages on salaries - - 13,000,000 

A reduction made by the king- on the civil list, for the suf- 
fering departments - - 10,000,000 
Increased custom duties - - 20,000,000 
Increased stamp and register duties - - 26,000,000 
Claims for the sale of communal lands out-standing 22,992,000 
Ditto on account of wood sold - - 12,950,000 
Ditto on national property - - 8,000,000 
An account of a supplementary vote of credit of six mil- 
lions - 5,000,000 
Excess of ordinary receipts - - 22,202,420 



291,343,141 
Extra expenses - - - 290,800,000 



Balance - - - 543,141 



A very cursory and rapid view of the system of French finance is 
sufficient to convince the reader of two facts; first, that the amount 
of circulating property is small; and secondly, that the taxes raised 
upon it are at once oppressive and unproductive. Tne situation of 
this great kingdom is not indeed easily comprehended by English in- 
tellect, accustomed to the parade of commercial wealth, and habitu- 
ated to confound a large circulating medium with vast public re- 
sources and great individual happiness. In France, the soil, emi- 
nently productive, returns to a very moderate cultivation an abun- 
dance of all those articles which form the essential support of life; 
and the quantity of the produce compensates the farmer for the low 
price, which he has been accustomed to receive for it 

The property, likewise, being subdivided among many hands, by 
the operation of the republican codes, primitive habits are engender- 
ed; and wealth, instead of being accumulated for the gratification of 
individual vanity and ostentation, flows in streams and in runlets a- 
mong the mass of population. Here, indeed, it may be truly said, that 
nature has given fiarca quod satis est manu. An hunter in the stable, 
and a bottle of port or of claret upon the table, and the 
frippery education of a country boarding-school for his chil- 
dren, form no part of the necessities of a French farmer; but the 



xXxviii APPENDIX ti. 

peasantry are well clothed and well fed, and crowded workhouses 
and parochial donations make no supplen lentary compensations for 
scanty wages and dependant servility. 

It results from this state of society, tha t while excessive misery 
is scarcely known, and mendicity compan itively trifling, there is ve- 
ry little disposable property, which, in circulation from hand to hand, 
can come within the grasp of the financier; very little luxury, very 
little parade of equipage and establishment, a scanty internal com- 
merce, and of course, no great quantity of circulating medium. 

In the exfwse of the state of the nation, which Napoleon caused 
to be drawn up in the year 18! 3, the population of the departments 
of ancient France was found to be 28,700,0 00 souls; that of the en- 
tire empire, 42,705,000. 

The average quantity of corn grown in Impe rial France, 

deducting the seed for the next year, us taken at Francs. 
230,000,000 of quintals, which, on anavera ge of fifteen 
years, is in value - - 2,300,000,000 

The produce in wine amounts to 40,000,000 of hectoli- 
tres; of which 3,300,000 are consumed in tb e manufac- 
ture of 650,000 hectolitres of brandy; the Whole com- 
puted to be worth - - 800,000,000 
This article was considered as doubled since the revolu- 
tion, while the empire was increased but bj a third. 
The annual value of the woods - 100,000,000 
1,200,000 quintals of hemp, and 500,000 of flaj c, together 

make - - - 80,000,000 

In oil, the empire raises to the amount of - 250,000,000 

Tobacco produces - - 12,000,000 

Hay and straw not reckoned, because they ar e included 

in the value of stock. 
Raw silk grown in France - - 30,000,000 

(22,000,000 of pounds weight of cocons. ) 
The wool of 35,000,000 of sheep - " 129,000,000 

The carcases of 8,000,000 slaughtered annually 56,000,000 

The annual increase of stock of 3,500,000 horses is 
280,000, of which 250,000 arrive at the a;ge of four 
years, anJ are worth - - - 75,000,000 

12,000,000 of black cattle admit of an annual slaughter of 
1,250.000 head of oxen and cows, and 2,500,0 '00 calves, 
amounting to - - - 161,000,000 

The butter and milk of 6,300,000 cows 1 50,000,000 

Haw hides - - - 36,000,000 

4,900,000 pigs annually slain - - 274,000,000 

The produce of the metallic mines - 50,000,000 

Ditto of coals - - - 50,000,000 

Salt .... 28,000,000 

Sundries, incapable of separate appreciation, fro lit, honey, 
g-oats, asses, mules, garden stuff, orchards, pulse, 
Jt.c.kc. - - - 450,000,000 

T> otal Fr. 5,031 ,000,000 
or 7209,625,000 
sterling. 



But if we take the population as a guide, and consider the reve- 
nue of royal France as one-third less than that of the empire, its an- 
nual produce may be estimated as / 139,750,000 sterling. 

The fir o due e of manufactory is thus stated, 

Thirty millions of home produce, and 10 millions of silk im- Francs. 

ported from Italy, yield in manufactory a profit of - 84,000,000 

Woollen manufactory - 220,000,000 

Tan pits ...... 53,000,000" 

Hat manufactory - .... 23,000,000 

Hemp and liuen ditto - ... 139,000,000 

Cotton ditto ...... 235,000,000 

Paper ditto - ... - - - 36,000,000 

Printing- ..---. 62,000,000 

Soap making- ------ 30,000,000 

Manufacture of tobacco - 60,000,000 

Breweries - - - - - - 40,000.000 

Cider manufactory - 50,000,000 

Cabinet and coach-making .... 30,000,000 

Wroug-ht and cast iron manufactory, by the first processes 70,000,000 
Other mineral works, alum, gypsum, marble, copper, &c. &c. 12,000,000 

Cutlery, arms, gilding-, and brass manufactory, Szc. &c. - 67,000,000 

Gold and jewellery works - 32,000,000 

Watch-making .--.._ 20,000,000 

Glass and pottery ..... 82,000,000 

Dying .-.-... 15,000.000 

Total Fr. 1,36 0,000,000 

To these sums an addition is made in the expose, for certain new 
products of industry, such as beet-root sugar, scarlet from madder, 
indigo, and soda, amounting to 65,000,000 francs; but this revenue 
seems more than problematic, at least for the present. 

The whole amount of French industry, in the year thirteen, stood thus y 

Francs. 
Produce of the soil - 5,031,000,000 

Manufacture of raw materials ... 1,300,000,000 

Products of new manufactures ... 65,000,000 

6,396,000,000 
To these sums must be added the value of the last opera- 
tions, such as those of bakers, tailors, &c. persons em- 
ployed in making up manufactured goods for sale. One- 
tenth of the whole .... 639,600,000 

In 1812, the year fireceeding the date of the expose, 

The exportations were - - - 383,000,000 

The importations - - - 257,000,000* 

The balance in favour of France - - - ~ 126,000,000 

Fr. 7,161,600,000 

* Before the revolution, the imports were 230,000,000 francs, and the ex- 
ports 300,000,000 francs. 



Xl APPENDIX II. 

It would perhaps be impossible to obtain, at the present moment, 
any satisfactory documents respecting the annual income of royal 
France; but if one-third be deducted tor the loss of territory includ- 
ed in the expose of Napoleon, then the income is 4,774,400,000 
francs, or / 198,933,333 sterling. The taxes for the present year 
amount to 730,020,661 francs, or * J, 30,417,527 sterling nearly; be- 
ing something less than one-sixth of the whole produce: when this 
tax is paid, there remains (admitting the population to be twenty- 
eight millions), in round numbers, just six pounds per head for the 
annual support of the inhabitants. Without, therefore, laying much 
stress upon the accuracy of these details, there cannot remain a 
doubt that the people are taxed to the full extent of possibility, and 
that a continuation of the present imposts is nearly impossible. On 
the other hand, a large proportion of the present year's budget con- 
sists of loan, and of the caution money, which is in fact, a forced 
loan, subject to four per cent, interest, which cannot be renewed 
hereafter. We have further to observe, that both the war and 
marine^ establishments will requae a subsequent increase of ex- 
pense, and the additional sums demanded for the clergy must be 
added to the burdens of the ensuing years, together with a deficit 
upon the present budget, which public rumour states to be enor- 
mous. The condition of the exchequer must therefore be taken 
into consideration, as one of the many causes which are hostile to a 
continuance of the Bourbon dynasty, and affording a powerful ele- 
ment of discontent among the people, and of embarrassment and 
feebleness in the government. 

The severity with which the allies have pressed on the nation, as 
a retribution for its political offences, contributes to render insecure 
all the arrangements they have so industriously made, for preserving 
the stupor (it cannot be called peace) of Europe; and it will be 
placed by historians in the catalogue of faults committed by the 
congress of sovereigns. The state, however, of their several do- 
mestic exchequers, it may be said, made this plunder of the enemy 
a matter of necessity. Europe could not maintain its armies of oc- 
cupation, but at the expense of the soil on which they are quartered; 
and the unfortunate Louis had only to choose between abandonment 
to the uncontrolled sentiments of his subject, or an overwhelming 
and ruinous taxation. 

The total destruction of the ways and means of France, is a pro- 
ject more dangerous than that of its dismemberment; yet nothing 
short ot this extreme can result from the continuance of the system 

* The revenue of the year preceding- the revolution was .20,500,000 francs, 
and its ordinary expenditure 26,000,000 francs. 

The budget for the year 18 17, at 1,069,000,000 francs, or about / 45,000,000 
sterling. 

f The marine has, in the budget for 1817, been from necessity decreased. 
In fact, Franco, under, the present system, can neither have an efficient navy 
nor army r , and it must be at the absolute mercy of those nations, that can 
support the expence of such estabhsliments. 



FINANCE, XU 

of occupation. To rely upon an increase in the commercial powers 
of the country, as a source of revenue, is absurd. Years of real 
and secure peace must pass, bofore the national industry can be ren- 
dered more subservient to fiscal purposes; while on the other hand, 
it is to be feared, that agriculture (which, though it has made gi- 
gantic strides during the revolution, has yet fallen off, since the in- 
troduction of old abuses) will still suffer a greater degree of degra- 
dation, under the benumbing influence of the ancien regime. [The 
old government.] Population likewise, which has formed its in- 
crease upon the drain of an incessantly recruiting army, will soon 
become superabundant, and afford increasing materials for mendi- 
city, in the increasing number of the useless and unemployed. 



APPENDIX NO. HI. 



OF THE STATE OF MEDICINE, &c. &c. 
IN FRANCE. 



Ne apud hos quidem, a primS. origine, 

Sed paucis ante nos seculis. Celsus. 

A comparative view of the progress and condition of medicine, 
in England and in France, if executed on an enlarged or compre- 
hensive scale, would form a work of no mean interest. In the hands 
of the professor, it would become a means of enlarging the bounds, 
and rectifying the classification of the healing arts, while, to the 
philosopher, it would reflect a strong light on the general march of 
science, and would furnish a good practical chapter on the mechan- 
ism of the human intellect. For purposes, however, like these, the 
subject would require a development incompatible with the space. 
to which these observations must be confined, and with the still 
more limited research and abilities, which are brought to the dis- 
cussion. 

The same marked opposition, which the two nations have ever 
exhibited in their modes of thinking, on points of taste, literature* 
and politics, may be traced also in their pursuit of science, and iu 
their manner of handling (if the metaphor be allowable) a philoso- 
phical question. Perhaps there is no particular, in the history of 
human nature, sufficiently remote from the influence of political 
institutions, to remain altogether unaffected by the good or evil they 
entail upon society. 

In surgery, the French are confessedly our predecessors and mas- 
ters The long wars of Louis XiV rendered the improvement of 
this art an object of vast political importance, at the same time that 
they afforded abundant opportunity for observation and instruction; 
and royal favour, and individual industry, went hand in hand in the 
cultivation of this branch of scientific investigation. 

The visible and palpable nature of the subjects of surgical inquiry 
has given to that science a more decidedly experimental character; 
and the contempt which physicians affected to throw upon its prac- 
titioners, by emancipating it from the trammels in which the learned 
professions in France were held, became the fortunate means of an 
happier mode of investigation, and a more vigorous research. In 
England, however, the impulse towards improvement once given, 



MEDICAL SCIENCES. xHtt 

was followed up with that ardent love of knowledge, and daring 
boldness of inquiry, which Tor a long while characterised almost ex- 
clusively the British nation: and while the English surgeons bor- 
rowed and improved the mechanical inventions of their rivals and 
neighbours, they brought to the science itself a peculiar fund of 
physiological knowledge, derived from the advanced condition of 
general philosophy and of medicine, in their own country. At the 
period of the French revolution, there seems good ground for believ- 
ing that the English surgeons were in advance of the French. But 
since that epoch, there have been unfor'.unately such ample means 
of investigation afforded, Iliacos intra muros et extra; and there has 
been so great a demand for surgical talent, that in both countries the 
science has advanced nearly pari passu; and it would be difficult for 
an unbiassed umpire to determine, on which side the palm of merit 
should be adjudged. In those particular instances of improvement, 
which have been commenced in England, the French surgeons are, 
for the most part, in arrear; and some prejudices, derived from obso- 
lete medical doctrines, still obscure the field of their intellectual 
vision. But, in the general conduct of their profession, in prompti- 
tude and decision during operations, in ingenuity and facility in the 
adaptation of means to ends, they have obtained to a degree of ex- 
cellence, not easily to be surpassed 

With respect to medicine, circumstances are altogether different. 
There is not only much room for comparison, as to its progress in 
England and in France, but there exists in the two countries a total 
and a fundamental difference in the modes of considering the sub- 
ject, and consequently in the curative intentions of their respective 
physicians. To the establishment of this difference many circum- 
stances have contributed. The natural variations of the English 
climate, the still greater extremes of temperature, to which a large 
part of its inhabitants are, by their mercantile pursuits, exposed, and 
their comparative intemperance as to food and drink, have necessa- 
rily rendered them the victims of a variety and a severity of disease, 
to which the French, from their geographical position, and agricul- 
tural pursuits, are to a great degree exempted. This fact is exem- 
plified not less in the happy constitution of the people, than in the 
advanced age at which the majority of those persons in France die, 
whose influence on society renders it an object to record in history 
the period of their decease.* But a still more influential source of 
difference lies in the independent and manly tone, which philosophy 
in general assumed at an early period in England; and which, while 
it circumscribed the domination of authority, gave confidence to 

* II n'avoit que cinquante six, on que soixante ans, [he was only fifty-six 
or sixty] is a common formula of French biography. The Cardinal de Fleuri 
died at ninety; the President d'Henault at. ninety-six; Crebillon Fils at se- 
venty; Condamire at seventy-four; Voltaire at eighty-four; the Marquise du 
DefFant at eighty-four. Men of seventy and eighty have usually as much 
life and playfulness in France, as their grandchildren 



Xliv APPENDIX III. 

individual exertion, and multiplied and invigorated our methods of 
cure. 

From the earliest times there have subsisted two methods of 
contemplating disease, which have each had their supporters and 
panegyrists. The one considers its symptoms, as produced by a 
constitutional effort to expel or to overcome a noxious cause; and 
consequently as indicating a natural tendency towards recovery: the 
other views them as the necessary consequences of the injury re- 
ceived, and believes them to be regulated in their tendency towards - 
death or recovery by the ratio which the violence done to the system 
bears to its powers of resistance. The first theory sees in the 
morbid movements the result of an inherent principle of preserva- 
tion, and regards them as the most natural and best means of cure. 
The second considers them as essentially diseased; as the conse- 
quences, rather than the causes, of the progress of the malady; and 
as being neither the best means of recovery, nor even, in many cases, 
at all connected with convalescence. The duty of the physician, 
according to the first system, is to watch the progress of the symp- 
toms, to predict their consequences, and occasionally to interfere, 
when circumstances occur, which exaggerate, or suspend the cura- 
tive actions. According to the opposite hypothesis, it is his business 
to interfere from the beginning, to remove if possible the noxious 
cause, and to cut short at once the actions which it has occasioned; 
and which, however likely to terminate in a spontaneous cure, are 
still accompanied by a waste of the powers of life, and by a strain on 
the constitution. The former, or expectant plan, which relies so 
confidently on the powers of nature, and which presumes so seldom 
to interfere, belongs to the infancy of art, and manifestly tends to 
impede its amplification; while the operative or active plan pre- 
sumes a considerable knowledge of the laws of organized existence, 
and of the agency of foreign substances upon the living machine. 
The expectant theory prevails very generally among the French 
physicians, and is taught in their schools: the operative influences 
universally the methods of the English practitioners. 

If a judgment could be formed ot the state of medicine in France, 
from its several medical institutions, we should be compelled to be- 
lieve that it had reached to perfection, or that the French physicians 
were at least on a par with the best and most learned of their Euro- 
pean brethren. All the subordinate and associated sciences, anato- 
my, both human and comparative, physiology, botany, chemistry, 
&c. are cultivated with enthusiasm and success; and in their schools 
of medicine, besides the ordinary routine of instruction, courses of 
lectures are delivered gratis, on subjects, which, in England, are 
conceived to be but remotely connected with the pursuits of mere 
students, as the ornaments, rather than necessary acquirements, of 
active practitioners. Such, particularly, is the erudite course on 
medical literature, by Moreau de la Sarthe, in which sound criticism 
is mingled with profound philosophical views, and delivered with 



MEDICAL SCIENCES. xlv 

an elegance and polish of style, that partakes more of belles lettres 
than of dry medical disquisition. 

If to these considerations it be added, that surgery and medicine 
are taught in common, that the hospitals for clinical instruction are 
immense, well ordered, well attended, well ventilated, clean, and 
abundantly supplied with whatever is necessary to the health and 
comfort of the patients, the system of medical education will appear 
little short of absolute perfection. There seems, however, to exist 
an intrinsic and fundamental difference in the bent of the French and 
English intellect, which, if an ex parte judgment may be trusted, 
has given a superiority to the English in the pursuit oi science; or 
at least has driven the two nations into opposite roads of investiga- 
tion. The restraint, which the peculiar character of the French 
government had imposed upon political and theological discussion, 
from the earliest periods of inquiry, extended, by a natural conse- 
quence, to general philosophy; and while, by its abhorrence of in- 
novation, it imposed a chain on the inventive faculty, it directed the 
national intellect towards a dialectic subtlety. The operation also 
of this cause, by depressing whatever was not attached to the court, 
drove the sciences under the paralysing protection of patronage; 
and introduced the formation of corporate bodies, whose un ted in- 
fluence was calculated to raise their members to an etat in society, 
and to give them a consequence, to which, singly? they would in 
vain have attempted to reach; and the influence of these bodies was 
always paramount in the professions. The French, therefore, with 
the greatest aptitude for persevering and protracted study, can 
boast of but few inventors; and for the most part rest their claims 
of superiority upon order and analysis in scientific works, and upon 
pushing to their remotest consequences the discoveries of others. 

The same subserviency to established forms, the same dread of 
departure from ancient usage, which tie down their theatre to a cold 
and unnatural declamation, and fill their poetry and the.r paintings 
with the mythology of Greece, confining them to the few hacknied 
images which fall within the compass of the national idea of a the 
noble" has operated in the sciences, to confine their efforts to the 
improvement of already acquired knowledge, and has diverted them 
from the path of original inquiry. Of the numberiess inventions, 
which distinguish the modern from the ancient world, few, if any, 
are derived from France. Gunpowder, printing, drill-husbandry, 
the air-pump, the electric machine, pneumatic chemistry, the tele- 
scope, the Galvanic apparatus, are all vindicated by foreign nations, 
and to the names of Gaiiieo, Harvey, Newton, Franklin, and Jenner, 
they have not any thing, aut simile, aut secundum, to oppose. 
There is, on the contrary, impressed upon the philosophical esprit 
of the nation a marked love of system, and a disposition to contem- 
plate things, as they ought to be, rather than as they exist, to con- 
sider them in their abstract, rather than in their practical points of 
view. Hence their numerous perfect but inapplicable theories of 



XIW APPENDIX III. 

government, their treatises on agriculture, written and eonceived 
within the walls of Paris* 

In applying these remarks to the French medicine, we are na- 
turally led to recal the low ebb from which it has been raise-*, and 
the obstinacy with which its practitioners clung, for centuries, to 
Galen and the schools, thereby justly meriting the poignant ridicule, 
with which Moliere covered their studies and profession. The con- 
trast between these men, and the French faculty of the present day, 
is extreme; and the improvement which has been given to the art, 
within the last hundred years, is highly creditable to the talents and 
perseverance of the nation. The peculiar merits and defects of 
the French medical writers, may easily be anticipated from the pre- 
liminary remarks already hazarded. Obedient to the dictates of 
the expectant plan, and abstaining from active interference with the 
natural processes of disease, the whole powers and application of the 
French physician are concentrated in an accurate observation of its 
phenomena. Their works, therefore, on the art of Hippocrates and 
of Sydenham are among their happiest productions. The writings 
of Sauvages, Lieutaud, and, in modern times, of Pinel, Corvissat, 
&c. are replete with close observation and accurate discrimination. 
In the " nosographical arrangement" of Pinel, however, these me- 
rits are largely mixed with the vice of system. 

The analysis of diseases, according to the texture of parts, in 
which they occur, though a beautiful generalization, and pregnant 
with important results, is far from being sufficiently practical, to 
become the basis of nosology; and it necessarily embraces views 
altogether hypothetical. Thus, in internal inflammations, it rarely 
happens that the disease is confined to one order of parts; that the 
pleura, for instance, is inflamed, without some affection of the 
parenchyma, or mucous membrane of the lungs. Notwithstanding 
this defect, the work has obtained an almost exclusive pre-eminence 
in the French medical schools, and ranks very highly among the 
continental practitioners. In physiology, the works of Bichatf upon 
which Pinel's system is founded, are oi inestimable value; not more 
for the new and important remarks with winch they abound, and 
for the merit of his peculiar analysis of the animal structure, than 
for that true spirit of experimental investigation, which, both by 
precept and by example, they perpetually inculcate. Wherever 

* The invigorating- stimulation, which accompanied the revolution, has 
given a vast increase of energy to scientific pursuit. The establishment of 
the Institute has concentrated the talent of the country, and caused a prolific 
co-operation of the different sciences. The taste for experimental investi- 
gation has rapiiiy spread itself through every branch of inquiry; and medi- 
cine, though at all times destined to follow in the traiu of the other arts, al- 
ready begins to partake of the beneficial influence. 

f As the present observations are confined chiefly to medieine, any de- 
tailed account of the anatomical writers of France would be to a certain 
degree displaced; and their known and acknowledged excellence renders 
the attempt wholly unnecessary. 



MEDICAL SCIENCES. xlvii 

indeed the French surgeons have crossed the path of physic, they 
have largely contributed to its advancement; and the most consi- 
derable steps that have been made in the art were taken, since the 
branches have been taught in common. 

In profound and comprehensive views the French must be con- 
sidered as superior to ourselves: we have absolutely no work in the 
genre of the " anatomie generate" of Bichat, of his treatise " on life 
and death," or of the writings of Cabanis, if we except the Zoono- 
mia cf Darwin, which, maugre its originality, and many valuable 
practical hints, is inferior in patient investigation, and in luminous 
arrangement of idea, to the writings of the former of these authors. 
The spirit of the French philosophy, which dictated the logic of 
Condillac, and presided over their works of mathematical analysis, 
has diffused itself into many of the later medical productions of this 
nation, and has given them a decided excellence in those parts of 
the science, which are purely ideal. In all that is more particular 
and practical, the works of tne English physicians are by very many 
degrees superior and more valuable. 

To those who are not aware of the great extent to which the 
practice of medicine, even in the present advanced state of the na- 
tural sciences, is empirical, and are ignorant of the small connexion 
which subsists between our knowledge of the phenomena of disease, 
and our acquaintance with sound curative intentions, it will appear 
strange that the French, thus distinguished as physiologists, would 
not be esteemed by their professional breihren in England as good 
physicians it is, however, in physic, as in the other natural sci- 
ences; theory, however ornamental, however calculated to impose, 
by the air which it gives of connected and perfect knowledge, has 
done, and will do, little towards the enlargement of its domain. 
Very few, indeed, of the successful modes of combating disease are 
deductions, made, a priori, from scientific data, but have been struck 
off by hazard, or delivered down by tradition. Mercury, bark, and 
sulphur, the remedies best entitled to the appellation of specifics, 
are, in their discoveries and application, the most independent of 
pre-conceived notions, and of theoretical science. 

In theory, the French are, for the most part attached to the Bru- 
nonian doctrines, which they mix up and assimilate with no incon- 
siderable relics of the humoral pathology. They are either wholly 
ignorant, or eminently fearful, of the modern practice introduced by 
Dr. Hamilton. It occurred to the author of these observations, to 
see two patients of one of the most celebrated of the Parisian phy- 
sicians, who were labouring under serious and alarming symptoms 
of low fevers, De alvi statu nulla fuit inquisitio, ne enema quidem, 
consuetissimum alias remedium, hisce aegrotis adhibitum. 

Purgantibus uti, quae alvum acrius movent, Parisiis, religio est; 
nee in officinis pharmacopclarum servatur medicamentum quod 
Extractum Colocynthidis audit; usque adeo in despectu est apud 
medicos. Quae verj alvum lenius ducunt, nee temere nee sine 
apparatu quodam adjuvantium, vel in re minime ancipiti dantur. 



xlviii APPENDIX III. 

Jusculum, mane sumptum, causa fuit, quo minus meridie adhibe- 
rentur aegroto, quem ipse curavi. 

With respect to calomel, the practice of England is ridiculed by 
the French, as to the last degree empirical: no authority can induce 
them to administer it as a cathartic in fever, nor as an alterative in 
many of the diseases, in which it is advantageously employed with 
us In this respect, however, it would not be just to place their 
dislike wholly to the account of prejudice and obstinacy. The 
very trifling abuse of spirituous liquors, which occurs in France, 
and the little intercourse which subsists between that country and 
the East and West Indies, very much exempt the inhabitants from 
that class of hver complaints, which are so abundant in England; 
and which, masked under various insidious forms, extend the effi- 
cacy of mercurials to a vast many different complications of disease. 
The same cause also operates to simplify fever; and to render its 
connexion with visceral obstruction less common and less violent. 
Possibly it may also contribute to preserve a greater sensibility of 
the intestinal canal, which may render the employment of drastic 
medicines less safe and less necessary. 

But with every possible deduction on these accounts, it must be 
confessed, that the apprehensions thus entertained are excessive and 
unwarranted. The cutting short of fever, by the administration of 
a dose of calomel, followed by sepna, &c. &c. forms no part of their 
practice, nor enters apparently into their minds as a desideratum. 
The theory of expectoration, indeed, which considers the febrile 
movements as essential to the return of health, forbids such an in- 
terference, as disturbing the course of nature, and (by a strange pre- 
judice) as originating those visceral congestions, which we find to 
be averted by the practice in question. 

The prevalence of this doctrine, conspiring with the currency of 
the Brunonian theory, leads also to a more sparing employment of 
the lancet, than is usual with us. The temperance of the natives, 
the facility of perspiration which their climate produces, will doubt- 
less enable them to throw off inflammation, with much less depletion 
than is necessary in treating the same cases in England But from 
the frequency of consumption among the French, there seems to be 
great danger in their suffering even slight pleurisies and peripneu- 
monies to run their natural career, when they can be cut short at 
once by a slight blood-letting: not to mention the protraction of the 
disease, and the fatigue of a long continued expectoration. 

By the dread which prevails of powerful remedies, and by a strong 
remaining tincture of Galenical practice, there exists among the 
French physicians considerable confidence in drugs, which English 
practice has consigner 1 to oblivion, as insignificant and inert. Their 
patients are still drenched with pint draughts, " pour adoucir, leni- 
fier temperer et rafraichir le sang," and " pour amollir, humecter 
et rafraichir les en» rallies;" [to sweeten, lenify, temper and refresh 
♦he blood, and to soften, moisten and refresh the bowels;] in the effi- 



MEDICAL SCIENCES. xllX 

cacy of all which, both physician and patient " most potently be- 
lieve. " 

It is no very flattering result for the art; but it is most unques- 
tionably true, that the proportion of deaths to recoveries in disease, 
is, with a very few exceptions, the same under every plan of treat- 
ment. The number of those, who must inevitably die from the vio- 
lence of the malady, and of those, who, from the opposite cause, 
must necessarily recover, is so great, in comparison with that of the 
persons who owe their life or death to the skill or ignorance of the 
physician, that it is rarely possible to appreciate the merit of ^erne- 
dial treatment, by this test. 

It was not, therefore, without much surprise, that the author of 
these pages found the average loss, in the Parisian hospitals, to be 
much greater than usually occurs in those of the British metropolis. 
In the report made to the French government on the charitable in- 
stitutions of Paris, in the year 1808, it appears that there were re- 
ceived, during the year 1806, into the hospital called " La Charite" 
the best, though not the most extensive in Paris, three thousand two 
hundred sick, Of these were 

Discharged - - 25 71 

Died 385 

Remained in the hospital 244 

3200 



The mortality, therefore, was as one to. 6,67. 

The Hotel Dieu^ on the first of January, 1806, contained one thou- 
sand two hundred and seventy-four sick. The mortality on the 
whole number taken in during the year, was, for the men, as one in 
5,38, and for the women, as one in 4,36. 

But, in order to arrive at a greater degree of accuracy, the re- 
porters take into consideration that many patients die on the first 
days of admission, whose decease is not chargeable against the prac- 
tice of the hospital. On this account they state, that of one thou- 
sand and eighty-seven males deceased, five hundred and thirty-six 
died in the first ten days; and these being deducted, the mortality 
becomes reduced to one in seven; and the same rule being applied 
to the deaths among the women, the average is rendered one in 5,46. 

By the applications of this method to the deaths and recoveries at 

La Charite, the mortality of the men becomes one in 8,38, and that 

8 38-4- 'S 82 
of the women one in 5,82, giving a total average of — - — ~S—1 — =7,10. 

The average duration of the cases, excluding those who died or 
left the hospital during the first ten days, was at V Hotel Dieu, thirty- 
seven days; and at La Charite thirty days; the female cases being in 
both the most protracted. 

g 






I APPENDIX III. 

The vast number of desperate accidents and of severe disease, 
which such a city as Paris must produce, renders some deduction 
from the sum total of mortalities absolutely necessary, for the justi- 
fication of the medical practice; but in taking so long a time as ten 
days for the standard, in distinguishing curable from incurable ma- 
ladies, there must necessarily be excluded the great majority of 
deaths by fever; and the physician must consequently be relieved 
from a greater onus than he is entitled to. The mortality which re- 
mains seems therefore enormous, and it greatly exceeds the aver- 
age number of deaths in those even of our hospitals, which are des- 
tined exclusively to the reception of fever cases The average mor- 
tality in that fatal endemic, the Walcheren fever, where the pa- 
tients had to struggle under every disadvantage of military vicissi- 
tudes and privations, did not much exceed one-tenth. 

The great difference observable between the institutions of France 
and England, subsists also in their public charities. In England, 
these are the fruits of individual benevolence, and are separately go- 
verned, according to the will of tneir respective founders and con- 
tributors. In France, ihey are under the management of the go- 
vernment, and are all regulated by a common police. 

It is not easy to state, with becoming accuracy, all the consequen- 
ces resulting from each of these methods. It appears, however, 
that a more comprehensive view is taken of the wants of the 
French metropolis, and that considerable advantage results in the 
arrangement and distribution of the sick. On the other hand, there 
is a manifest inconvenience, if not danger, in bringing the sick from 
the remotest part of the city to a central bureau, for the purposes of 
preliminary inspection. 

The largest hospital in Paris is the Hotel Dieu, which was de- 
signed to contain two thousand beds for constant occupation, and 
two hundred, kept as a reserve for accidents. It does not, however, 
contain at present so great a number. Its situation is by no means 
well chosen, being in the very centre of the city; but as it is placed 
on an island in the middle of the river, the current of air occasioned 
by the stream must be favourable to ventilation. The wards are 
spacious and perfectly well aired; and the patients are attended by 
a society of nuns of the order ol St. Augustin, with the utmost hu- 
manity, and with a zeal that passed the fiery ordeal of the revolu- 
tion unabated and unsullied. 

JL,a Charite contains only two hundred and thirty beds of which 
one hundred and twenty are set apart for medical cases, and one 
hundred and four for those requiring surgical treatment. 

The hospital of St. Antoine contained on the 1st of January, 1806, 
one hundred and seventy-two, and it received during the year two 
thousand two hundred and sixteen. Total mortality one in 5,74, or, 
with the former abatement, one in 7,42. 

L'Hjfrital Beaujon contained on the 1st of January, 1806, ninety- 
eight sick, and received during the year one thousand four hundred 
and forty-six. 



MEDICAL SCIENCES. ii 

Gross mortality one in 5,96. 

L.'Hofiital JVecker contained, at the commencement of the year, 
one hundred and thirty sick: received during twelve months one 
thousand and thirty-nine. Mortality one in 5,59. 

U HCfiitul Cochin has provision for one hundred sick. Mortality 
in 1806, one in 6,96. 

V Hofiital de St. Louis contains nine hundred beds, and was de- 
signed to receive infectious cutaneous diseases, also scrophula and 
scurvy. 

U Hofiital des Veneriens has five hundred beds. It received in 
1806, two thousand six hundred and sixty sick, of whom one thou- 
sand three hundred and forty were men, and one thousand three hun- 
dred and twenty women; an equality of numbers that appears wor- 
thy of remark, if moral causes be taken into consideration. The 
mean duration of the cases was sixty-two days, and the mortality as 
one in 22,54. 

Before the revolution such cases were principally taken to the 
Bicetre; but the whole number received there amounted only to six 
hundred annually, while that of the applicants was more than two 
thousand; and these are said to have formed scarcely a fourth of the 
number requiring assistance: for the majority were withheld by their 
hopelessness of obtaining admission, and by the horrible condition 
of the sick when admitted. Each ward contained several ranges of 
beds; the floors also were strewed with them; yet notwithstanding 
that three or four sick were sometimes placed in each bed, they 
were obliged to rise in the middle of the night, to make room for 
others to take a turn of repose. If to these considerations it be ad- 
ded, that the names of the applicants were often placed on the list 
for admission eighteen months before they could be received, some 
notion may be formed of the sort of disease, and of the treatment 
which that hospital exhibited. 

L' Hopital des Enfans Malades [The Hospital for sick children] 
contains five hundred beds. In 1806, two thousand one hundred 
and sixty-one sick were admitted. The mean duration of the cases 
was seventy days. The mortality of the boys was one in 3,81; that 
of the girls one in four. They were admitted from two years to 
fifteen. 

The lunatic hospitals are, one at Charenton, in which forty beds 
for men and twenty for women are maintained, at the charge of the 
hospitals of Paris. The Bicetre has accommodation for above one 
hundred persons: at la Salpetrie there are from seven hundred and 
fifty to eight hundred females: some of these are incurables; others, 
deemed curable, are selected from such as have not obtained admis- 
sion at Charenton. They are placed in five separate departments 
or wards: one an hospital for incidental disease, one for incurables, 
one for furious maniacs, a fourth for those not dangerous, and a fifth 
for convalescents. The two last contain a spacious walk, shaded 
with trees. In the practice of this hospital, which is under the su- 
perintendence of Pinel, great stress is laid upon the tepid bath, as a 



Ill APPENDIX III. 

remedy for mania, to which is added when the patient is riotous, a 
douche [a pumping of cold water] of cold water, falling several feet 
on the head: this practice seems to operate, not less as a moral, than 
as a physical remedy. Various local means are also occasionally ap- 
plied, such as cauteries, leeches, blisters; but in general little reli- 
ance is placed upon the exhibition of drugs, while much confidence 
is placed in morai means, especially in occupation. In the physi- 
cians' private room, there are accumulated numerous casts of the 
heads of lunatics, forming a most hideous and fearful portrait of hu- 
manity. The sum total of information which they afforded, was de- 
cidedly unfavourable to the physiognomical doctrines of Gall. Such 
at least was the opinion of Mons. Pinel on the subject, to whose po- 
liteness and urbanity the philosophic traveller, who visits this hospi- 
tal, will always find himself largely indebted. To those, who are 
unacquainted with the writings of this eminent physician, it will be 
consoling to know, that the utmost humanity and skill prevail in the 
treatment of maniacs in France: chains and whips are absolutely for- 
bidden; and the most furious maniacs are restrained by a well-applied 
waistcoat. Another point also, in which morality and good feeling 
are cultivated, is in the seclusion of these unhappy patients. In no 
hospital are they made a public exhibition, to gratify the curiosity 
or the malignity of idle holiday-makers. Besides these hospitals, there 
are very many others, of a miscellaneous description. The found- 
ling hospital, hospitals for incurable diseases, for the blind, several 
military hospitals, and an excellent one attached to the ecole de la 
medicine, [the medical school,] &c. &c; and the bureau de benefi- 
cence [the benevolent office] distributes advice and releif to poor 
room-keepers at home. The funds for this charity are drawn, 
by an happy association, from a tax on the places of public amuse- 
ment. 

Besides the hospitals in which persons are gratuitously received, 
the delicacy of moral tact among Frenchmen has given birth to es- 
tablishments, termed " maisons de sante," [houses of health], in 
which those, whose fortunes have not reduced them to the necessity 
of receiving charity, but who are yet unequal to the expense of 
home attendance, may procure an apartment, the services of a nurse, 
physician, surgeon, and apothecary, upon the extraordinarily moder- 
ate terms of three francs per day, paid a fortnight in advance, or of 
two francs only, when the invalid chooses to sleep in a common dor- 
mitory. Besides the establishment in the Rue du Faubourg St. 
Martin, which belongs to the government of the bureau de benefi- 
cence, there are others belonging to individuals, who apparently 
render these institutions a means of introduction to general practice. 
It may very well be doubted, whether establishments like these 
could be introduced into England, where provisions are so expensive, 
and where civility, and the numberles inexpressible attentions which 
the sick require, must be purchased of the nurse by clandestine 
gratuities, and where there subsists so large a portion of petty pride 
and ostentation, to prevent small tradesmen and room-keepers from 



MEDICAL SCIENCES. liU 

accepting an advantage, which would so publicly mark their circum- 
stances in iife. The spirit however in which the maisons de sante are 
conceived, might be adopted at home with benefit to the national 
character, to counteract the depressing influence of that system, 
which has placed nearly a quarter of the male population upon the 
parish lists, and bowed dow n the " bold peasantry, their country's 
pride," topaupeiism and servility. 

In the general management of the French hospitals, all the ad- 
vantages of order and arrangement are attained, which might be 
expected from the military precision that the revolution has intro- 
duced into every branch of the public service. By six o'clock in 
the morning, nurse, physicians, surgeons, and pupils, are assembled; 
and before twelve, every patient is visited; half a dozen or more 
great operations, perhaps, performed, clinical lectures given, and 
advice administered to a crowd of external patients. The advanta- 
ges resulting from these early hours, are, first, that the diet for the 
day is directed according to the actual wants of the patients; while 
in hospitals where this regulation does not subsist, any changes 
which the physician may make in the food and drink of the sick, can 
only be put into execuiion on the following day, when their situa- 
tion and necessities may become very different. There is, besides, 
a great increase of comfort to those, whose wounds, Sec. require 
dressing, and who are thus at an earlier hour put at rest for the re- 
mainder of the day. But the principal benefit which ensues from 
this practice, is in the case of great operations. Very often in the 
English hospitals, a patient knows that he is condemned to an am- 
putation, &c. &c. for some days before it is to take place: by opera- 
ting every day, this interval is, in France, not extended beyond four- 
and-twenty hours; and by the early attendance of the surgeons, the 
immediate expectation is much diminished. It is in human nature 
sc contrived, that those events which are separated by the death of 
each day's life, do not impress the mind so strongly, as those which 
are to be performed in the current day: the agony of expectation, 
therefore, in these cases, is the most distressing, from the period of 
waking in the morning, until the hour at which the operation is to 
be performed. During this time, every moment is counted; and 
the arrival of the surgeon is alternately desired and deprecated, as 
patience or apprehension assume the control; and thus, much of 
that courage which should be reserved for the moment of suffering, 
is expended in horrible anticipations, and unavailing regret. There 
can be no hesitation as to the propriety of adopting, in our English 
hospitals, this merciful custom of early attendance. 

In the conduct of their operations^ and, indeed, in their general 
intercourse with the sick, the French medical men are tender and 
kind-hearted; and at once an honour to their profession and to hu- 
man nature. Their address is soothing, consolatory, eminently cal- 
culated to win confidence, and to quiet alarm. In action, they are 
prompt, dexterous, and alert. Every thing is previously calculated, 
and every step of the process clearly foreseen and arranged in the 



Hv APPENDIX III. 

mind, before any part of it is commenced. No time is thus spent 
in previous handling of the part; no interval is allowed to elapse be- 
tween the different stages of the operation After a moment's self- 
concentration, the surgeon approaches the patient with some cheer- 
ing and encouraging observation: he takes the knife; the incisions 
are mace; the saw is instantly handed; the assistant is ready with 
his ligatures; the arteries are tied; and the wound closed in the short- 
est possible interval. The utmost silence and decorum are observ- 
ed by the pupils during the whole time; and thus, both the moral 
and physical suffering attendant upon these horrible necessities of 
humanity, are reduced nearly to an absolute mininum. In all these 
particulars, the constitutional kindness of the French character, the 
activity of their sympathies, and the warmth of their feelings, display 
themselves to the greatest advantage. There is no cant of senti- 
mentality, no insincerity of compliment; their virtues are exhibited 
in positive result; and let those who are virulent in their abuse of 
the national character, blush, when they talk of degraded morals and 
egotistical indifference. 

Of the medical education in France, there has been already occa- 
sion to speak with praise: the subject is peculiarly interesting at the 
present moment, from the disputes to which it has given occasion 
in our country. 

There are in France three universities, having power to confer 
medical degrees; that of Paris, of Montpellier, and of Strasbourg; 
and the graduates of these places are at liberty to practise in Paris, 
or elsewhere in France, upon registering their name at the munici- 
pality of the arrondissement; a formality which is, however, often ne- 
glected, without drawing any serious consequences on the offender. 

The different ranks acknowledged in practice, are those of doc- 
tor of medicine, doctor of surgery, and officier de sante (a rank an- 
swering somewhat to that of surgeon apothecary in London,) and 
lastly that of apothecary, whose functions are strictly confined to the 
compounding of drugs. 

Before the establishment of this order, the practice of physic, 
like every other institution, had fallen into excessive abuses. The 
picture, which the reporters of the new law have drawn, is suffi- 
ciently similar to that which might be sketched of the present state 
of practice in England, to warrant a short extract. They state 
that, "in spite of the apparent order which subsisted, time had in- 
troduced abuses and irregularities, against which all persons of in- 
telligence had exclaimed for the last thirty years. Such particular- 
ly were the difference of qualifications for doctors, intra muros ct 
extra muros; the differences of privileges of bachelors, licentiates, 
regent and non-regent doctors. Opposed to some advantages, were 
to be peen the passions and jealousies assuming the pretext of order, 
and the dignity of the profession, to torment those, who, either by 
novelty of doctrine or successful practice, had arisen to distinction 
and notoriety. Its two universities (those of Paris and of Montpel- 
lier) preserved the severity and dignity of their examinations, all the 



MEDICAL SCIENCES. Iv 

others nearly had become culpably facile in their admissions, so that 
the title of doctor was conferred on absentees, and letters of recep- 
tion were expedited by the post." To remedy these evils, the 
three universities were, by a law, equalized both as to privileges 
and to qualifications; and a degree from either is now alike available 
in all parts of the empire. There exists, therefore, in France, no 
corporate bodies, independent of the universities, to regulate locally, 
or generally, the practice of physic; and infringements of the law are 
pursued, like any other penal offences, by the officers of the police. 
The time of study requisite for obtaining a doctor's degree in physic 
or surgery is four years; the examinations to be passed are one in 
anatomy and physiology, a second in pathology and nosology, a third 
in materia medica, chemistry and pharmacy, a fourth in I* hygiene 
and forensic medicine, and a fifth on internal or external clinical ex- 
amination, according as the candidate determines for physic or sur- 
gery. These examinations are public, and two of them are directed 
to be held in Latin. After they have passed, the candidate has yet to 
write and to maintain others, either in French or Latin. The whole 
expense of study and for the degree is fixed at a maximum of one 
thousand francs, about forty pounds. 

The qualifications for an officier de sante are six years' study un- 
der a doctor, or five years' attendance on the practice of a civil or 
military hospital; or lastly, three years passed in a school of medi- 
cine. He is examined by a jury composed of two physicians, do- 
miciliated in the department, and a commissaire, who is taken from 
among the professors of the several schools of medicine: this jury as- 
sembles once a year. The examinations are three; one in anatomy, 
one on the elements of medicine, and the third in surgery and the 
most common parts of pharmacy. The whole expense is limited to 
two hundred francs. The duty of these persons is defined, by the 
reporters of the law to be the general care of the sick, in remote 
country places, and the superintendence every where of such slight 
diseases as do not require the advice of the physician, or surgeon. 

Very particular pains seem to have been taken, respecting the 
education of apothecaries. Courses of botany, natural history, chy- 
mistry, Sec. are directed to be given in the schools of pharmacy; and 
no one is suffered to practise, without being first examined, either 
in the schools, or before a departmental jury. The examinations 
are, one on natural history, one on the theory of pharmacy, and ano- 
ther on its manipulations and processes. The last of these exami- 
nations must last for four days, and must consist of, at least, nine 
chemical or pharmaceutic operations, in which the candidate is to 
describe his materials, to explain his method of procedure, and de- 
clare the nature of their expected results. The candidate must be 
twenty-five years of age. The expense of his examination, in the 
schools, is fixed at nine hundred, francs; or before the jury, at two 
hundred. 



Ivi 



APPENDIX III. 



Officiers de sante, where there are no apothecaries, may supply 
their own patients with medicine, but they are not permitted to keep 
open shop. Apothecaries' shops are subject to visitation; by the 
professors of the schools of medicine, within a circuit often leagues 
from the place in which they are held. In all other places, this du- 
ty is performed by the jury of physicians. 

The sale of quack medicines is utterly forbidden; and druggists 
are subject to a penalty of five hundred francs, if they presume to 
compound medicines. Both druggists and apothecaries are bound, 
under a heavy penalty, to keep a book, in which the names, resi- 
dence; &c. are inserted of all persons, to whom they shall sell poi- 
sonous drugs; as also the nature of the drug, and the usage for 
which it is intended. 

In the instruction of midwifes, it is directed that an annual and 
gratuitous course of midwifery be given, in the largest hospital of 
the department. Before any person can be admitted to an exami- 
nation, she must have attended two courses of lectures, have been 
present for nine months at deliveries, or have operated herself in 
the hospital, for six months. Women are not allowed to deliver 
with instruments, unless sanctioned by the presence of a physician, 
6r surgeon. 

Such are the principal enactments of the law, which regulates 
the practice of physic. As far as could be gathered from general 
inquiries, it appears that the doctors in the two faculties practise in- 
differently in each, without jealousy and without disagreement; and 
that even persons, having no legal title, practise in Paris, &c. with- 
out drawing upon themselves the infliction of the appointed pen- 
alty. 

Apothecaries universally prescribe for the poor, and for such per- 
sons as ask their advice in their shops. The advertisements of 
quacks also figure upon the columns of the Palais Royal, no less 
than upon the walls of the Royal Exchange, in London. The new 
institutions of medical police in France are not therefore more effec- 
tual in regulating the practice of physic, tjian the obsolete enact- 
ments of the English law. It should seem that the most which can 
be effected by such legislative interference, is a general influence 
upon the profession; and that great forbearance and indulgence 
must ever be granted to individuals. For it is in the natural or- 
der of things, that society should break through the artificial dis- 
tinction of ranks created in colleges and academies; and that hav- 
ing the purse in its own hands, it should distribute its favours, 
wherever caprice or judgment directs. There ever must exist 
some few apothecaries, better skilled to practise physic, than the 
ordinary mass of routine physicians; for genius is not confined to 
any rank: surgeons likewise will often be found, the bent of whose 
ability lies rather towards physic than surgery, and it is a manifest 
injury to society, and an injustice towards individuals, to deprive 
such persons of the exercise of their peculiar talent. It is be- 



MEDICAL SCIENCES. lvU 

sides a natural and an inevitable consequence, that mothers, in- 
debted for their own and their childrens' lives, to the skill of an 
accoucheur, should extend their confidence in him through the other 
branches of the art, and call upon him to attend in the general dis- 
eases of the family; nor can any penal statute prevent her from 
preferring a tried friend, to making a confidence of the secrets of 
htr family to a stranger. The poorer class of persons also will al- 
ways apply for the cheapest advice, and will seek it among the com- 
pounders of medicine; notwithstanding any statute that may be made 
to the contrary. The apothecary will, indeed, be the small shop- 
keeper's physician, not more on the score of expense, than on ac- 
count of the distance, which education and habits of life place be- 
tween such persons, and the graduated doctors. 

Two great difficulties oppose themselves to any regulation, sus- 
ceptible of a rigid practical adoption. Either other qualifications 
must be expected, than mere examinations, or that test must be ta- 
ken alone. In the first case, individuals entitled by their knowledge 
to practise, will be excluded, when their fortunes huve placed them 
out of tue reach of university instruction; a decision, with which the 
public will never comply. In the second, the entire object of legis- 
lative interference will be defeated, since no test is more undecisive 
or more capable of evasion, than the power of answering a few 
questions; a power which may be acquired by the short and sum- 
mary method, well known to those whom it may concern, under the 
technical appellation of grinding. It should therefore become an 
established principle with all corporate bodies, to administer their 
powers according to the spirit of their institution, and not in the 
dead letter of monoiopy; for, in proportion as their utility is circum- 
scribed, individual oppression becomes offensive and intolerable. 
From the whole that could be gathered from inquiries, not al- 
ways very directly answered, the medical police, as far as it concerns 
the regulation of practice, seems to have become, in Paris, a dead 
letter, without producing many cases of flagrant imposition, or ex- 
citing any jealousies or ill-will amongst the practitioners. 

The school of physic in Paris is numerously attended. The fa- 
culty are in possession of a building of great convenience, and of 
beautiful architecture. Bu r . its amphitheatres, though of immense 
size, are not larger than is necessary for containing the crowded au- 
diences, which consists not only of medical students, but persons at- 
tracted by the general love of knowledge. During the continuance 
of war, the demand for surgeons alone maintained a numerous class 
in the schools. Cuvier, in a desultory conversation with which he 
honoured the author of these sheets, stated the annual consumption 
of medical officers, under Napoleon, at an average of five hundred. 
The faculty of physic possess an extensive and valuable library, 
like all other Parisian libraries, of most easy access and much fre- 
quented. They have also a collection oi preparations, inferior in 
many respects to those- of the anatomy schools in London; a collec- 

h 



iviii APPENDIX 111. 

tion of surgical instruments, and another of models. These last 
are beautifuiJy executed, and represent recent dissections with a 
perfection, which no art can preserve in the parts themselves. 

The faculty assemble at certain intervals, to read papers and to 
discuss practical points; for which purpose the members also bring 
patients for illustration and for example. At the sitting at which 
the author was present, a member exhibited some cases of very ex- 
tensive suppurating tumours, which were absorbed and dissipated 
by the repeated application of the moxa. One of these tumours 
had occupied the whole of one side ol the back, and must, from the 
appearance of the part, have contained nearly half a gallon of fluid. 
In the same sitting, a paper was read, recommending the exhibi- 
tion of large doses of opium in cholera: the difference in the state of 
French physic and of surgery could scarcely be better illustrated. 

Though abounding in scientific journals, France is not possessed 
of any periodical work on the healing arts, comparable with the 
Edinburgh Medical Journal, or the transactions of the London Me- 
dico-Chirurgical society. The practice of giving detached obser- 
vations to the public has not yet commenced in France, or is confined 
exclusively to the verbal communications made at the Institute, and 
other learned societies. Individual vanity has not taken this route 
to gratification, and authorship in general is not made a professional 
stepping stone, but is confined to a few individuals, who rarely deign 
to make their appearance in a less imposing manner, than by an en- 
tire system, or in a smaller shape, than a series of comely octavos. 
The practice also of the country offLciers de sante, &c. is in all pro- 
bability, too closely subjected to the law and the gospel of authority, 
to admit of thobe novelties, which pour in from all parts of the 
British dominions, upon the editors of periodical works; and which, 
if they subject the reader to the task of wading through much non- 
sense, still contain, among the chaff, a considerable portion of valu- 
able grain, which, if not thus gleaned, would be lost to the service 
of humanity. 

The " Bibliotheque Medicale" [the Medical Library,] consists 
entirely of extracts from published works and criticism. 

The " Journal General de Medicine," [the Journal General of 
Medicine,] commenced by Corvisart, Boyer, and Roux, has passed 
into other, hands 

The " Journal Universel des Sciences Medicales" [the Journal 
Universal of the Medical Sciences,] is an entire new work, and has 
yet its reputation to establish. 

" La Gazette de Sante" [the Gazette of Health,] is a single 
sheet, published every ten days, containing principally facts, with 
but a small portion of critical matter. It is valuable for its list of 
the cases, which are from time to time admitted into the hospitals 
of Paris; and it contains also a series of articles upon the history 
of medical opinions. This work is edited by Dr. Montegre, a gen- 
tleman of great talent, information, and zeal for science; and it is 
conducted in a spirit purely philosophical. Of these works, some 



MEDICAL S0IENCE5. 



lix 



have been recently silenced, by the operation of the new stamp du- 
ty, Usque adeo obtusa, &x. Such is the spirit of the present go- 
vernment. 

It has been the fate of physic, from the very first revival of let- 
ters, to creep slowly behind the other sciences, and to adopt their 
methods only at considerable intervals after their establishment and 
success. This has arisen partly perhaps from the culpable influ- 
ence of authority, and partly also from a laudable hesitation at inno- 
vating, where so great an interest is at stake. This remark will 
explain the present state of the science in France, which is still 
very greatly in arrear of its associate arts; and is commencing only 
that career, in which the other natural sciences have made such 
considerable progress. There is, however, good cause to believe, 
that the impetus which it has received, will lead to speedy and im- 
portant improvements, and that the spirit of Bichat, Gaulois, and 
Majendie, will be carried to practical discussions. To the habit of 
observation, on which the French physicians so justly pride them- 
selves, there will then be added a greater degree of enterprize in 
the employment of curative means, and thus they will become enti- 
tled to take a lead in forming the medical opinions of Europe; and 
will have weight enough to induce our own countrymen to set bounds 
to their empirical tendencies, if, as the French suppose they are 
indeed verging to a vicious excess, and tend to a partial degradation 
of the science itself. 

At the time when the father of physic wrote, the observation 
of symptoms was the only road open to investigation- ' Chemistry, 
anatomy, physiology, did not exist, nor had natural philosophy ex- 
plained any of the external causes w r hich generate disease. But 
the leading reason which impelled Hippocrates into his peculiar 
line of inquiry, was the almost entire want of all really powerful 
remedies. Without bark, mercury, antimony, and opium, his means 
ot operating upon disease were limited within very narrow bounds. 
His functions, as a physician, were reduced nearly to a vain and use- 
less augury, while his views, as a philosopher, were necessarily di- 
rected to the subject itself, for the means of curing disease, by his 
ignorance of the resources of the external world. The present 
state of knowledge justifies and demands a different line of inquiry. 
It is no longer sufficient to know disease; the physician must cure 
it. He must wield with courage and dexterity the weighty wea- 
pons, which modern discoveries have placed in his hands; and in this 
branch the French have yet much to learn. Their literature is emi- 
nently deficient in those monographic works, which in England have 
so powerfully contributed to the progress of medicine; and it is ab- 
solutely without names, to place in the same line of those of Ha- 
milton, Currie, Saunders, Pemberton, Blackall, and Watts. They 
have, however, but a small barrier to pass, a few prejudices to cast 
aside, and the zeal with which natural science is so universally pur- 
, sued, will lead them rapidly forward in the right path. In the mean 
while it is to be hoped, that the horrible and barbarous system of in- 



IX APPENDIX III. 

sulation and seclusion, which for thirty years has cramped the ener* 
gies and checked the progress of tiie sciences, will give place to a 
peaceful intercourse between nations: or, at least, that war will be 
conducted upon a more humanized plan. Whatever may be the 
political relations of independent states, it belongs to the illumina- 
tion of the present age to determine, that the lettered and scientific 
world shall be considered as universally at peace; that it shall at all 
times be permitted by a freedom of intercourse and a liberal inter- 
change of knowledge, to promote the great work of human happi- 
ness; and, like pity, following in the train of slaughter, to heal up 
those wounds, which the madness of ambition inflicts on the pros- 
perity and civilization of the European republic. 



APPENDIX. NO. IV. 



SUMMARY VIEW OF THE STATE OF 
POLITICAL OPINION, 

IN FRANCE. 



Talor si scuote, 
Sorter tenta, ricade, et torna schiavo, 
E trar dal ceppo antico il pie lion puote, 
Qual domestico aug-el, per poco ch' abbia 
Svolazzato al difuor, ritorna in gabbia. Casti. 

The French revolution, while it has found no apology in the vices 
and mismanagement of the oid government, has been made charge- 
able with those consequences, which have exclusively resulted from 
the opposition of its enemies. 

At every epoch of its appalling history, the march of events has 
been turned aside, and driven into new courses, by an external force 
of compression; which, exaggerating all the passions incident to 
political change, has given a new character to the people, and hur- 
ried them into situations, the least consonant with their interests and 
intentions. 

It is now very generally admitted, that the crimes and misfor- 
tunes of the reign of terror (as it is emphatically termed) were fo- 
mented and exasperated, if not commenced, by the ill-judged resis- 
tance of the Bourbon princes, and by the hostile coalition of the 
European sovereigns. Nor can it reasonably be doubted, that the 
dominion of Napoleon rested upon the same foundation. At the 
period of his return from Egypt, the French nation, encompassed 
with foreign enemies, had lost nearly the whole of its earlier con- 
quests; and agitated by internal suspicions and jealousies, was una- 
ble to repress faction, or to preserve its independence and integrity, 
under a popular form of government. 

A short campaign, under the command of Bonaparte, sufficed to 
remove the danger of invasion from the frontiers, and enabled him 
to dictate terms to the invading armies. The snake, however, thus 
" scotched," but " not killed," would soon have " closed and been 
herself," and France more than ever would have been " in danger 
of her former tooth." It became, therefore, inevitably necessary, 
to place the national strength in the hands of some individual, more 
capable of wielding it than the feeble and disjointed directory. This 



lxii 



APPENDIX IV. 



proceeding, felt as a necessity, was not admitted as a desideratum. 
The people were not blind to the probable consequences of the step 
they took; but they had no choice between the sacrifice of their ex- 
istence, as a nation, and the establishment of a more consolidated 
authority in the republic. At the epoch of the consular govern- 
ment (as it has again happened in the year 1815,) there was no 
middle term between the reign of a military chieftian, and that of 
the Bourbons and their allies; and the nation cannot be considered 
as deviating, in either instance, from their original sentiments, in 
the choice which they adopted. The motives indeed by which they 
were actuated have since been fully justified by events; for, though 
during a reign of fourteen years, the scope of ^poleon's govern- 
ment was to establish arbitrary power in the imperial dynasty; yet 
he was necessarily interested to repress many abuses, which have 
since been brought back with the royal domination. The preten- 
sions of the ancient clergy, nobility, and parliaments, were incom- 
patible with his political existence; and he had a direct interest in 
the preservation of as many of the benefits of the revolution, as 
Were not absolutely inconsistent with his power and views, in order 
to attach the people to his government, and to form a contrast be- 
tween the imperial and the royal regime. Arbitrary and harsh as was 
the conduct of the emperor in those points, in which his personal 
interests were concerned, his government still preserved a conside- 
rable conformity to the spirit of the age: though he both hated and 
feared the republicans, he respected their notions, even when he 
most opposed their wishes. The legion of honour, the new nobili- 
ty, and the constitutional clergy, though anti-revolutionary institu- 
tions, which in the event have proved the stepping stones for the 
return of the old privileged classes, were still essentially orders of 
merit; and the principle of equality was preserved, both in civil and 
military promotion. The objects of Napoleon's government, also, 
where they were most hostile to liberty, were favourable to the mili- 
tary glory of the nation, the s/ies altera, the second idol of na- 
tional worship * By habit, by prejudice, and by necessity, the 
French had become a military nation; and they fully sympathised in- 
all his schemes for extending the empire, and revenging the inj u 
ries they had sustained from the sovereigns of Europe. The pros- 
perity which the revolution had impressed upon the agriculture of 
the country, by the suppression of feudal and ecclesiastical rights, 
not only enabled it to sustain, without material detriment, the bur- 
den of war, but supplied even a sentiment of gratitude to the go- 
vernment, by which these advantages were confirmed. The admi- 
nistration of the laws, though in some instances corrupted by the 

* L'nom non e forse da' tiranni suoi 
Spinto a crudel carnificina anch' esso? 

Ed ei (che creder lo potria) 1'infame 
Giogo non soffre sol, ma par che l'ame. 

Gli animali parlanti, Canto xix. stanza 37. 



POLITICAL SUMMARY. 



lxiii 



emperor, was in the aggregate rendered secure, equal, and respect- 
able, by the labours of his ministers: who, profiting by the exertions 
of the preceding governments, produced that simple, comprehen- 
sive code, which now passes under his name. 

Although the circumstances of the times, and Napoleon's pecu- 
liar situation, gave a decidedly despotic character to the imperial 
government, yet in its general features it was marked by the absence 
of unnecessary crimes, and of useless and unprofitable vexations. 
The emperor rarely indulged in wanton outrages upon the puolie 
feeling, but strove rather to heal the national wounds, by abridging 
the lists of proscription, and restoring the forfeited properties, which 
remained unsold, to nearly all, who were not absolutely and decid- 
edly hostile to his government, while in the magnificence of his 
public works, utility and general convenience were consulted, even 
where the largest sacrifices were made to personal aggrandizement, 
and individual ostentation. 

It should not, however, be imagined that the nation had sunk into 
an insensible acquiescence in his abuses of authority, or were seduc- 
ed by the splendour of his achievements, into an oblivion of their 
suspended rights, Repeated conspiracies had been formed against 
his person and authority, during the short course of his prosperity, 
and the moment of his adversity was eagerly seized, for a renewed 
declaration of rights, (consonant, and almost identical with the first 
breathings of liberty in the year 1789,) and for an attempted revival 
of republican forms, which was rendered abortive by the interpo- 
sition of a military force, against which there remained nothing to 
oppose. 

In frequent and confidential conversation with individuals most 
attached to his person, with his private intimates, and with the com- 
panions of his military glory I never met with any attempt to dis- 
guise or to soften the errors of his reign. Amongst the nation at 
large there existed a manifest coldness with respect to his return to 
France, except when his government was contrasted with that of 
the old dynasty . Then, indeed the comparative mildness of his sway, 
the absence of childish and unmeaning persecution, and the gran- 
deur of his military enterprizes, were themes of warm panegyric 
and fond regret. Compared with the effects of the restoration, 
with the absolute renunciation of the revolutionary principle, with 
the spirit of the emigrants, and the prospective renewal of every 
antiquated custom, the tyranny of Napoleon is esteemed light, and, 
what is more important, evanescent. The imperial throne, established 
on the sovereignty of the people, sanctified and kept in remem- 
brance that fundamental principle of liberty; and held up to the 
nation a prospect of future freedom, and a precedent, which they 
might follow, whenever circumstances should be more favourable 
to their exertions. 

It is a manifest injustice to accuse the French of indifference to 
liberty, and of political fickleness, upon the demonstration of the 
populace during the rapid changes of the last three years. Every 



1X1V APPENDIX IV. 

thing upon these occasions was forced and unnatural. With a foreign 
army in their streets, and with a vigilant and tyrannical police 
in the bosom of society, the exhibition of the orthodox colours, and 
the ejaculation of the proper cry, became matters of dire necessity. 
Yet if the display of national feeling was not more lively at those 
periods, than the childish and feminine trebles which cheered the 
king under the windows of the palace, during l he summer of 1816, 
the royalist faction had little reason to boast of popular acclamations. 
Admitting, however, to the fullest extent, the enthusiasm which 
might have been manifested upon the return of the Bourbons, by 
the populace of Paris, it would be gross delusion lo trust to such 
an exhibition, and it would be idle and unjust to cast it in the face of 
the nation. Without dwelling upon the trite maxim of popular in- 
stability, it is sufficient to ask how far the English nation would be 
content to rest its character for sense and political sagacity, upon 
the disgusting and degrading avidity, with which a well-dressed mob 
pursued the allied monarchs, during their triumphal visit to London. 
With respect to the restoration of the royal family, there is not 
the slightest shadow of pretence for attributing it to the will of the 
people. The nation was compelled to submit lo the government 
of the Bourbons, in the same manner as they had been forced to 
adopt Napoleon, by the violence of their external enemies; and if 
the election of this family by the senate, at the first restoration, had 
less the semblance of restraint, than their forcible return on the se- 
cond (when the gates of the corps legislatif were* closed by a for- 
eign soldiery,) the difference rests wholly in appearances, the vio- 
lence being the same in both instance's. 

Worn out as was the nation by repeated changes, and disabused 
respecting the connexion of liberty with forms purely democratic, i: 
is highly probable that they would still have been contented to sub- 
mit to the constitutional government, under the old dynasty, had 
such a combination in the nature of things been possible: but the 
sentiments of the king and of his family were too well known, to 
admit of confidence. As long back as the year 1795, he had him- 
self protested, * that both duty and honour forbade his relaxing from 
the authority transmitted to him by his predecessors, and that he 
looked to nothing but the restoration of the catholic religion, and the 
ancient constitution.' So long igo also as the first revolution, a 
specific offer had been made to the emigrant princes, to unite their 
return to France, with the re-establishment of Louis XVI, and to 
grant them each a million per annum (forty thousand pound ster- 
ling), besides the payment of their debts. Their reply was « tout 
ou rien/ [all or nothing.] But perhaps the most extraordinary in- 
stance of the views, which have uniformly governed, the royal house 
of France, is to be found in the instance of Pichegru, who, when 
he offered to negociate the return of the expeiied family, was, by 
the prince de Conde, refused the 4 cordon bleu,' [the blue ribbon] 
because he was not sprung from a family sufficiently exalted to 



POLITICAL SUMMARY. 1XV 

merit the honour of that order. Charles II of England knew better 
how to treat with Albemarle. 

The people of France were not, however, long left in dependence 
upon insulated anecdotes, for their knowledge of the reyal inten- 
tions. The wishes of their triumphant (though not conquering) mas- 
ters were soon too plainly spoken. The charter drawn up by the 
senate, and forwarded to the king for his acceptance, as a prelimina- 
ry to his admission to the throne, and by his brother freely and un- 
conditionally accepted in his name, was in a few weeks contemned 
and violated; and a form of government, in every particular differ- 
ent, was granted to the people, of his benevolence, and by his ab- 
solute authority. The throne, accepted as the gift of the nation, 
but maintained as of divine right; the king's reign, dated from the 
decease of his predecessors in the royal line, and his style changed 
by the omission of the phrase * by the constitution of the empire/ 
gave abundant indication of what was to come, and at one blow 
rescinded the whole transactions of the revolution; and rendered 
every act, upon which the national pretence to liberty was founded, 
null and illegal. 

In the same spirit with these changes was conceived the altera- 
tion of the national cockade, a circumstance indifferent in itself, but 
infinitely important by the impression it was calculated to make 
on the nation. The influence which habit confers upon signs inde- 
pendently of their intrinsic value is among the very elements of po- 
litical wisdom; and it required no great experience to have felt that 
in every change, which is attempted in the insignia of national feel- 
ing, the people and not the government should have the initiative. 
The tri-coloured cockade, and the eagle, would as effectually have 
rallied the people under a Louis, as under Napoleon to march against 
the enemies of the country. It was therefore the merest political 
driveling, to change the ensign, connected with so many recollections 
of national glory, for another, which, to say the least, was remem- 
bered only by disagreeable associations. The tri-coloured cockade 
led to no conclusions, and pledged to no particular measures, for it 
had been adopted and worn by Louis XVIII; but the change made, 
in defiance of the reiterated acclamations of the senate, gave at 
once too plain a manifestation of the spirit and tendency of the new 
government, and showed such an excess of weakness and of preju- 
dice, as shocked the most moderate, and cooled many of those 
friends whom a love of peace had attached to the royal succession. 

Nor was the disclosure of the royal sentiments confined to these 
measures. Every act of the government spoke hostility to the 
revolution. The refusal of the Due d'Angouleme to accept the 
charter; the total silence of the royal princes on the subject, during 
their tour through France, in which they repeatedly harangued the 
municipalities; the shadow of representation which the new model- 
ed corfis legislatif afforded, the dismissal of senators of good repute, 
the disbanding of the imperial guard, and formation of the Swiss 
corps (detested for the recollection which it was calculated to renew. 



ixvi APPENDIX IV. 

no less than for the distrust the measure exhibited of the native 
soldiery,) the general tenor of the language held by the princes,* 
and their exclusive attachment to emigrants and anti-revolutionists; 
the surrender of the frontier fortresses to the allies; the threatened 
attack upon the purchasers of national property, in the speech of 
M. le Compte Farrand, one of the king's ministers; the writings of 
the AvocatS) Dard and Faiconet, on the same subjects, scarcely 
disavowed by the government; innumerable articles of a (similar 
description in the ministerial journals, sent gratis by the ministers 
to known royalists, spread universal dismay, and left not a hope to 
bind the people to the royal line, or to justify their obedience to the 
sceptre of the Bourbons. 

If the conduct of the royal family was little calculated to concili- 
ate the people, that of the emigrants was, if possible, more openly- 
hostile to freedom and to reason « These persons," says a popu- 
lar French author, kt who have returned to France, without having 
learned experience from misfortune, or forgotten the least ot their 
ancient pretensions, have not scrupled to erect themselves into 
public accusers, although ev-ry thing conspired to accuse them- 
selves. Their awkward and insensible egotism and vanity, their 
ignorance ot the situation of affairs, and of the temper of the times, 
their impatient and insatiate desire to recover their possessions, 
sold under the guarantee of the laws, and which could not be re- 
stored but by unsettling the fortunes of the great mass of society, 
will not fail to be regarded as the principal causes of the hist vicis- 
situdes of the royal family, for whom they refused to make the 
slightest sacrifices. Deaf to the voice of their country, and to the 
interests of their king, they will be held answerable by posterity for 
the consequences of their extravagance and of their obstinacy. "f 

The absurd pretensions of the emigrants, and their total forget- 
fulness ot the possibility of re-action, led them into the wildest and 
most impolitic measures. Imagining their cause to be gained, the 
nation to be chained at their feet, and to be incapable of resistance 
to any punishment they might inflict, they disdained the smallest 
disguise of their sentiments and expectations. Thus, in one of 
their inflammatory pamphlets, addressing the people, their organ 
exclaims, " all the families you have butchered and plundered, 
those who have escaped your fury, and whom you affect to despise; 
those, upon whom you have exercised for six-and-twenty years all 
sorts of vexations and injustices, and for whom you entertain a 
sovereign hatred, are no longer disposed to submit to your domi- 
nation The time is passed for these things: the king, for whom 
we have suffered every thing, is restored; the monarchy will be re- 
established, and so shall we, and you will return to the insignificance 

* The comte d'Artois, in reply to an aristocratic deputation, committed 
himself so far as to say " Jouissons du present, je vous reponds de l'avenir." 
[Le -i us enjoy the present, I will answer for the future.] 

f Le Conciliateur. i 



POLITICAL SUMMABY. IXVU 

from which you arose."* It was upon these grounds that the 
French exclaimed, " The Bourbons and their friends have returned 
chcz tux, and not chez nous.'.'!" [home, but not to «.<?.] 

Not confined to these verbal reclamations of their property, thev 
proceeded in many instances both to force and to fraud, for recov- 
ering its possession. Researches were made into the validity of 
the sales of national property, and slight pretexts sufficed for their 
annulment. In one instance, a property of fifty thousand francs 
was confiscated, on an alleged failure in the payment of sixty francs 
in part of the purchase money. Instances a«so were not wanting, 
in which the ancient proprietors expelled the occupants by force of 
arms, and in defiance of all law and order. 

The avidity which was manifested for the recovery of the old 
estates was accompanied by every mark of contempt for the people, 
and for the army, which had fought their battles Persecution and 
proscription were the destined portions of all who had favoured, 
even by their wishes, the march of the revolution. The expiatory 
acts of religion, ordered for those events upon which the national 
liberties had been founded; the ' associations, formed and presided 
by the grand almoner, for sending into the provinces missionaries 
to rally the defenders of the throne and the altar, were prelimina- 
ries to a complete counter-revolution, and therefore in direct viola- 
tion of the royal charter. 

These and a thousand similar acts, which it is difficult to assign 
to their respective authors, but which all emanated from the emi- 
grant spirit, were the fruits of that restoration, which the foreign 
trot ps imposed upon the country. 

To these facts may be referred, without fear of contradiction, 
much of the supposed attachment of the people to Napoleon, and 
the eagerness and unanimity with which they threw off their en- 
forced allegiance to the king, and ranged themselves under his 
banner. The royal government, by its conduct, had rendered it- 
self hateful to the people, suspicious to the proprietors of national 
property, contemptible to the army, and desp 3*Ue in the eyes of 
every lover of constitutional liberty. Under Napoleon, the renewal 
of a military despotism was probable, as destructive war was ine- 
vitably certain; but the priests, the nobles, and the emigrants were 
expelled, and the people were satisfied that they were gainers by 
the exchange. But, however fondly the people of France might 
cling to the memory of Napoleon, under the domination of a dy- 
nasty, which understood not the changes that five-and-twenty years 
had produced in France, and which was opposed in all its personal 
feelings to the interests of the people, it is nevertheless true that 
the emperor had not a majority of friends among that part of the 
population, which took the lead in political matters. The fact in- 
deed is placed beyond the possibility of dispute by a circumstance, 
even yet, not very generally known in these countries. 

* L'autorite des choses jugees. 



Ixviil APPENDIX IV. 

Some time before the arrival of Napoleon from Elba, the impos- 
sibility of a long submission to the tyranny of the emigrants being 
felt, and a conviction entertained, that any change in the condition 
pf the kingdom would be for the better, an extensive conspiracy 
was formed for expelling the Bourbons, and for assembling a na- 
tional representation to decide upon the form of government, which 
should be substituted for the monarchy. 

In this conspiracy were concerned many republicans and lovers 
of the English form of government; but it embraced also military 
and other characters attached personally to the imperial dynasty.* 
Yet the object of all parties being the establishment of national inde- 
pendence, and the maintenance of peace with Europe, they unani- 
mously agreed fin full confidence in the declarations of the allies, 
that their hostility was personally against the emperor,) and bound 
themselves to each other in a solemn obligation, to exclude Napo- 
leon from any further concern in the affairs of France.f 

At the moment when the plot was ripe for execution, and when 
the first movements had already been made in the north, Napoleon 
suddenly burst upon the Bourbons, and commenced his excursion 
to Paris. To declare against him under these circumstances, 
would have been, to divide the kingdom, and to fight the battles of 
the common enemy. Submission became a matter of necessity; 
and the efforts of the friends of liberty taking a new direction, tend- 
ed to the establishment of a constitutional government, and the im- 
position of effectual restraints upon the emperor's known love of 
domination. The activity and power of this party are exhibited in 
the popular language of Napoleon's manifestos; and his dread of 
them is shown in the absurd measures he precipitately took, to 
strengthen himself by the acte additionnel. During the whole time 
of his absence with the army, the labours of the representative body 
were directed to fortifying themselves against arbitrary encroach- 
ment, in case of his returning victorious from the battle he was 
about to encounter; and their successful resistance to his attempt 
at seizing the di^f torship; after his defeat at Waterloo, is a suffi- 
cient pledge of tne spirit by which they were actuated-! Thus, 



Particularly Le F Des- 



f This article was the basis of the whole enterprise, and stood first in the 
agreement. To betraj the source from which the anecdote is derived, 
would, perhaps, compromise the very respectable individual who narrated 
it to the author of these pages. The authority, however, is immediate, and 
such as entitles it to every consideration. 

\ On the evening of the second abdication, in the Secret Committee of 
the Corps Legislatif, Lucien, in a speech of considerable talent, endeavoured 
to rally that body round his brother. In summing up, however, he ventured 
to accuse the French nation of levity, and want of perseverance. To this 
assertion, La Fayette replied, " C'est une assertion calomnieuse que celle, 
qu'on vient de proferer. Comment a-t-on ose accuser la nation d'avoir €t€ 
lege re et peu perseve>ante a Pegard de l'empereur Napoleon? Elle Pa suivi 
dans les sables d'Egypte, et dans les deserts de Kussie, sur cinquante champs 
'•le bataille, dans ses desastres, comme dans ses victoires; et c'st pour l'avoir 



POLITICAL SUMMARY. lxiX 

then, for a second time, the kings of Europe placed Napoleon on 
the throne by forcing the people to a measure which had only 
comparative recommendations; and thus again they impeded the 
natural course of the nation towards freedom, and gave a new and 
destructive tendency to the march of the revolution. 

During the whole of the hundred days, and up to the closing of 
the chamber of representatives against the members, the will of 
the nation was as sirongly expressed in favour of a rational freedom, 
as the circumstances would admit; and it may be doubted whether 
Napoleon, notwithstanding his arbitrary measures, would have con- 
tinued more than an instrument in the hands of the national repre- 
sentation, had he even gained the battle of Waterloo. The boastful 
way in which he acknowledged his popular title to the throne; the 
change in his manner; his mixing among the common people; and 
his continual anxiety to captivate good opinion, all marked the vast 
increase and influence of liberal opinions, and the decisive change 
which had taken place in the public spirit, since the period of ins 
former authority. Nor can it be believed that such men as Carnot 
would have continued in his ministry, without some better object 
than the re-establishment of his accustomed despotism. 

The defeat of Napoleon, however, gave another turn to affairs; 
and the moment was seized (perhaps not very judiciously) for the 
re-establishment of a republican government. The declaration of 
rights, promulgated %y the representatives, affords another proof of 
the steadiness of the thinking classes, to the original principles of 
the revolution, for it is nearly identical with that, made by the con 
stituent assembly in 1789.* 

suivi, que nous avons a regretter le sang- ele trois millions de Franqais." 
[The assertion which has just been made is a calumny. — Who dares accuse 
the nation of levity and want of perseverance with respect to the emperor 
Napoleon? — We have followed him to the sands of Egypt, and to the deserts 
of Russia, to fifty fields of battle, in his disasters, as in his victories; and we 
have followed him to regret the blood of three millions of Frenchmen.] 

This speech has been somewhat misrepresented: it is now given as com- 
municated to the author by the general himself. 

* Declaration of rights, made by the national assembly, July, 1789. 

Nature^has made all men equal and free. The distinctions necessary to 
social order are founded solely in public utility. Every man is born with 
rights, inalienable and imprescriptible. These are liberty of all sects and 
opinions, the right to preserve life and honour, the right of property; the free 
disposition of person, faculties, and industry; free communication of thought 
by every means; the pursuit of happiness; the resistance to oppression. 

The exercise of national rights has no other bounds, than those necessary 
for their common enjoyment. No man can be bound by laws, other than those 
made by himself, or his representatives; and which are already promulgated, 
and legally applied The sovereignty lies imprescriptibly in the nation; and 
no individual, or body of persons, is entitled to authority, which does not 
emanate expressly from that source. The end of all government is public 



1XX APPENDIX IV. 

The principles promulgated in -these declarations, were approved 
by a majority of the representatives, and form the bais of the cr; ed 
professed, by the greater part of the nation. It may seem extraor- 
dinary, that, actuated by such sentiments, the French did not afford 
a more effectual opposition to the career of their enemies. But 
under circumstances so unfavourable to resistance; when a beaten 
and dispersed army, without the materials of war, were opposed to 
a million of men in arms; when doubt and distraction prevailed in 
the senate, and no rallying point was open for public spirit, it is dif- 
ficult to find grounds for effort, or encouragement for hope. The 
enslaved condition of the press also had rendered the promulgation 
of a natural sentiment slow and uncertain; and there was little con- 
fidence among individuals, respecting the real feeling of the 
country; the obstacles therefore to a guerilla war were apparently 
insurmountable. With respect to the propriety of fighting another 
pitched battle under the walls of Paris, great difference of opinion 
subsisted at the time in council, and still subsists among the people. 
The judgment of Carnot, Vandamme, and the majority of the as- 
sembly, ail against the risk, is entitled to considerable weight. The 
danger of delivering Paris to pillage, the universal and well-found- 
ed distrust of Fouche, and of other leaders; the apparent hopeless- 
ness of the cause, even in the result of a victory, are all available 
excuses for not fighting. How far a confidence in the declarations 
of the allies, and of the pledge given to the hduse of commons by 
the British ministry, may be entitled to the same claim, is more 
than problematical. 

good; and this requires that the legislative, executive, and judiciary authori- 
ties, should be separate and defined; and that their organization ensure a free 
representation of the citizens, the responsibility of ministers, and the impar- 
tiality of judges. The laws should be clear and precise, and uniformly appli- 
cable to every citizen. The taxes should be freely voted, and equally as- 
sessed. And as the abuses which, in the course of successive generations, creep 
into all human institutions, necessitate the occasional revision of the laws, legal 
and peaceable means should be indicated, to ens-ure, in certain cases, an extra- 
ordinary meeting of national deputies, for the express purpose of examining 
and correcting the vices of the constitution. 

Declaration of rights, made by the representative corps, in 1815. 

Liberty of citizens — equality in civil and political rights — liberty of the 
press — liberty of worship — the representative system — the necessary consent 
of the people to levy troops and taxes — responsibility of Ministers. 

N. B. To these articles were added others, arising out of the circum- 
stances of the times. Such are — 

Irrevocability of sales of national property — irrevocability of existing pro- 
prietorships — abolition of tithes, of nobility, ancient and modern, hereditary 
and feudal — abolition of confiscation, in all cases — oblivion of past political 
acts and votes*— institution of the legion of honour — continuance of rewards to 
officers and soldiers, and of pensions to their widows — institution of juries — 
immoveability of judges— guarantee of the national Debt. 



POLITICAL SUMMARY. 



lxxi 



The engagements of the allies with Louis XVIII were evident, 
and the whole tenor of their court conduct, in congress, exhibited 
a decided hostility to the revolutionary principle. To hope that 
they wouiu tolerate in France a republican, or even a really repre- 
sentative system of government, to expect at their hands any dis- 
pensation which wouicl leave France an unshackled and preponde- 
rating power in the European balance, was a stretch of credulity, 
which can only be jus lfied as the last clinging effort of drowning 
despair. On tne otner hand, if the people were earnest in their 
love of liberty, there was no desperation equal to an unconditional 
surrender. The army which retreated behind the Loire was consi- 
derable; many chiefs were eager to fight, and all would have obey- 
ed, had the order for battle been given: every house in Paris would 
have formed a citadel, and the siege might ha\ e been protracted* 
like that of Sarragossa. Had the defence of Paris been under- 
taken, merely as a means oi obtaining terms, it is not unreasonable 
to suppose that the effect would have been considerable. The allies 
must nave felt p;reat hesitation in committing themselves in the eyes 
of Europe, and of posterity, by the destruction of the finest city of 
the Christian continent, the centre of civilization, the home of nearly 
half a million of human beings, the depot of the principal remains 
of antiquity, and of the fine arts. The common voice of mankind 
would have exclaimed against the violation. At all events, the ex- 
istence of France was not dependant on that of Paris; and the sacri- 
fice of Moscow afforaed a recent example. Still, however, he must 
be a bold and confident judge, who shall presume unhesitatingly 
to condemn the French for a tame submission, under such circum- 
stances. The Bourbons had received a fresh lesson, apparently, 
sufficient to instruct the slowest intellects in the conduct they ought 
to pursue. The eyes of Europe were open to the necessity for a 
liberal government in France; and the finances of its most invete- 
rate enemy were rapidly exhausting. Every thing, therefore, pro- 
mised, that the coalition would in a lew years spontaneously melt and 
fall asunder, and would leave the nation to its own exertions. 
Much then, was to be expected from a Fabian policy: and when hu- 
man life, and the accumulated comforts of an immense metropolis 
were at stake, there might be reason in ceasing from a desperate 
struggle, and in preserving the national strength for a period of 
brighter auspices, and more rational expectation. 

It has been a customary attack upon the revolution, to assert that 
the French are at once unworthy and incapable of liberty; and that a 
forcible reinstatement of tne Bourbons would be a benefit confer- 
red upon a thoughtless and inconsiderate people. This position is 
certainly convenient. By an easy generalization, it follows, that 
some despotisms are necessary; and the necessity may, in its turn, 
be applied to every particular instance. It would, however, be dif- 
ficult to show that there exists any cause latent in the climate, diet, 
or other physical conditions of the nation, which .infits them for that 
liberty, which is the common right of all mankind; and with respect 



IXXU APVENDIX IV. 

to moral causes, they have not yet had that fair trial which is ad- 
equate to decide the question. 

The enjoyment of rights is connected with the perfoamance of 
duties; and the habits of freemen cannot be suddenly, impressed 
upon a generation nourished in slavery. But the progress which 
the nation, under every disadvantage, has made in political know- 
ledge, is by no means inconsiderable. 

The fidelity with which the office of juryman is discharged in 
France has been mentioned in another part of this volume: and in 
the worst epochs of the revolution, corruption in the exercise of the 
elective franchise was unknown; a decisive proof that the people are 
neither insensible to the blessings of liberty, nor ignorant of the 
basis on which it is founded.* The leading defect in the political 
character of the French, is the want of a proper jealousy of the 
minutest infringement of popular rights; it is an insensibility to in- 
dividual outrages on the liberty of the subject, where private inter- 
ests are not concerned; and the secret is betrayed in the co-exis- 
tence of an habeas corpus law, with Fouche's system of police. 

There are, and there necessarily must be, in such a capital as 
Paris, a large body of persons prone to submission, and ready to 
purchase ease and riches by compliance and flattery. The inferior 
writers (more especially tne canaille [rabble] of literature) have ex- 
hibited a disgraceful want of public spirit and character; but the 
numerous examples of stern and inflexible seduction, which the re- 
peated revoluiionsof the last thirty years have called into evidence, 
are amply sufficient to redeem the national reputation: it is enough 
to cite the names of La Fayette, Carnot, and Gregoire. If reliance, 
however, can be placed upon individual observation, a devotion to 
the interests of the country, and a readiness to make every sacrifice 
for the recovery of its liberties, are much more common than ego- 
tism and apathy, among the more respectabie classes. In France, 
as elsewhere, there is less patriotism among the trading part of 
the community, which is chiefly occupied with the returns of the 
shop; but with the cultivator of the soil, whose attachment to his 
country springs from an expansion of his domestic feelings, the 
sentiment is warm, animated, and enterprizing. Nor can it be 
doubted that the agricultural population would rise in amass, should 
the interference of foreigners be pushed too far, and the sense of 
national degradation be brought too closely home to the bosoms of 
the community. 

Situated as France has been (itcannot too often be repeated,) some 
contradiction in the popular feelings was inevitable. With necessi- 
ties the most opposite, with desires the most incompatible, now 

* The consequence has been, that policy, despairing- to manage the elec- 
tors, has curtailed their rights, both by open attacks, and by insidious compli- 
cation in the mode of election. " Trovata la legge" says the Italian pro- 
verb, " travato Vinganno." 



POLITICAL SUMMARY. Ixxtil 

struggling for liberty, and now contending for political existence, the 
nation has been compelled to vibrate between constitutional security 
and external strength; and it has been led to embrace forms of go- 
vernment the most opposite in character, and contradictory in prin- 
ciple. Still, however, like Proteus in the arms of Hercuies, the 
revolution, in all its metamorphoses, has preserved its individuality; 
it has tended uniformly to the same ends, and has pursued its course 
with a steady, if not an undeviating regularity. 

To judge of the political sentiments of the French, at the present 
day, it is sufficient to inquire, what has been the scope of the revo- 
lution. If its tendency has been to take from the few, and to give 
to the many, there can not be a doubt, that the majority are favour- 
able to i f s continuance, and dread the establishment of any power 
tending to deprive them of the benefits they have obtained The 
division of the national property into an infinity of small possessions, 
is in itself sufficient to attach a great mass of the people to the re- 
volution. The vast multitudes of peasants, masters of a little tene- 
ment, a garden well stocked and cultivated, and teeming with vege- 
table life; proprietors of a small plot of land, a cow, a pig, and 
poultry, with good clothes, and an abundance of excellent bedding, 
while they bear testimony to the benefits which France has derived 
from its first political change, afford an overwhelming mass of 
implacable hostility to whatever tends to shake the security of the 
national sales. 

Another interest most decidedly opposed to the restoration, is 
that which arises from the abolition of tithes. The immense bene- 
fit, which the cultivators of the soil derive from that revolutionary 
measure, keeps alive an hatred and a jealousy of the ancient system, 
whose spirit is bigotry, and whose supporters are known to consider 
the clergy, not only as religious guides, but as the pillars of the 
throne, as advocates of divine right, and as ready and useful assis- 
tants in the craft and mystery of government. Neither can the 
French farmer be deceived by the sophistry, so constantly played 
off in England, that the tithe falls exclusively on the landlord; for 
they ha.\e felt the difference. They have compared the opposite 
condition of a tithed and untithed cultivator: they practically know 
that the tax is not so much levied on the soil, as upon the industry 
and capital which render it productive. 

Another class of persons, bound by the same tie ot interest to 
the revolution, is that of the younger children of wealthy families. 
By a law, whose wisdom is equalled only by its humanity, the van- 
ity of the parent is prevented fiom reducing his family to beg- 
gary, in order to enrich the elder branch. By this law the bounds 
of caprice are regulated, by the number of children. The man 
who has one child only, may alienate one-half of his property, at 
pleasure. If he have two children, he is compelled to reserve two- 
thirds to divide between them; if he have three, his power of ali- 
enation extends only to one-fourth of his property.* A law like 
* Code Napoleon, 913. 
k 



IXxlv APPEN1UX IV. 

this, which provides tor the comfort of all the members of a family, 
which gives value to property, by its diffusion and circulation, and 
protects the state from the danger and corruption of overgrown 
fortunes, manifestly strikes at the very root of the feudal system, 
and is incompatible with the principles of the restoration. The an- 
cient regime is in its essence privilege, favour, and distinction. 
The subserviency of the younger children to the hereditary sup- 
porters of the family dignity and splendour, is no less a part of the 
system, than the existence itself of such representatives; the law 
therefore must be repealed or modified in a way unfavourable to 
the mass of the population, who will not easily forget the benefits 
they have enjoyed, for five-and-twenty years, under the protection 
of the revolutionary principle. 

Another description of persons, whose interests are injured by 
the restoration, is that of the private soldiers and subaltern officers 
of the army; who, without being, as their enemies assert, eager 
after plunder, and discontented with any settled order of society, 
may regret the competency to succeed to the highest military ho- 
nours, and the certainty which merit enjoyed of finding its level, 
independently of birth or court favour. The French government 
have thought it good policy to disband the remains of the imperial 
army, in order to disarm and separate men, whose habits of mutu- 
al confidence and of trust in their commanders gave them a dan- 
gerous advantage over their employers. But it is difficult to im- 
agine that the fresh levies will be less national, or less prejudiced 
against the new government, than their predecessors. They are 
equally alive to the recollection of the revolutionary principle of pro- 
motion; — they are the natural successors to the glory, to the re- 
grets, and to the wishes of the disbanded army; and they are fully 
as much awake to the ridicule of superannuated generals, and 
holiday colonels. The imperial soldiery, on the other hand, re- 
turned to their original occupations, exhibited the extraordinary 
picture of lieutenants at the plough, and captains in waggoners' 
frocks. Very many of these mer, promoted from the ranks, and 
acquainted with the charms of comparative idleness and wealth, 
while they are conscious of the services by which they rose to com- 
mand, cannot repress the disdain and disgust with which they re- 
turn to servile habits, nor conceal their hatred to the new order of 
government, which occasions their present obscurity. In the bo- 
som of their native villages, they become the centres of complaint 
-—the foci of sedition; and they will long preserve alive in the coun- 
try the existing feelings, respecting the restoration. This descrip- 
tion of men might perhaps have been conciliated by kindness, and 
won by protection; for it is the nature of soldiers to attach them- 
selves to those by whom they are paid: at present, they are at once 
monuments of faded glory, and ready instrumei ts for the first chief, 
who may start in opposition to the reigning dynasty. 



POLITICAL SUMMARY. 1XXV 

But if there be any class of society more fervent in its attachment 
to the revolu.ion, and thoroughly disgusted with the annihilation of 
constitutional rights, it is that of the literary and scientific men. 
Under this appeiiation it is not intended to include the official scrib- 
blers, who, divested alike of literary, as of moral character, remain 
steadily attached to the minister of police for the time being; and 
who, in consideration of a few hundred francs, are prepared with 
essays, odes, and epithalamiums, tragedies, operas, and farces, to 
adulate, or. satirize, to prove, or disprove, according to the reigning 
politics of the day Tne constantly increasing influence of public 
opinion has given importance to the labours of these men, in the 
estimation of the minister; while the meanness of their employ- 
ment, and their facility of tergiversation, have secured them from 
persecution. The same persons, therefore, have eulogized in suc- 
cession the republic, the emperor, and the king; and they remain, 
like the feline tribe, attached to the house, while they equally and 
in turns caress all its various and successive inhabitants. 

The genuine literati, and more especially the men of science, 
both by interest and principle, must be attached to tne revolution, 
which had raised the dignity of talent, by opening every employ- 
ment in the state to general competition, and had removed the va- 
rious impediments, with which bigotry and a mistaken policy had 
circumscribed and controlled the freedom of inquiry. Unembarras- 
sed in their functions, and raised in the scale of society, not more 
by the degradation of the honours of aristocratic distinction, than 
by their own positive increase in utility and importance, it is natural 
that they should be hostile to an event, which plunges them in their 
ancient roture, by raising to the surface a description of persons, 
whose eminence has no necessary connexion either with knowledge 
or morals; and it is just that they should distrust a family and a go- 
vernment, which for centuries had persecuted, with unrelenting se- 
verity, all opinions which did not coincide with the prescribed scale 
of fanaticism and subserviency The scientific classes are besides 
well aw are that the king entertains a personal dislike to them, from 
the share they have had, or have been supposed to have had, in the 
conduct of the revolution, while his exclusive affection for belles 
lettres, and his distate for the sciences, make but few claims on their 
admiration or esteem. In Napoleon, on the Contrary, the men of 
science found a warm friend, and a co-operating protector. That he 
possessed all the acquirements to which he pretended, is not proba- 
ble The life of a scldier is but little favourable to such various and 
extensive pursuits. But that he was a good mathematician, a com- 
petent chemist, an admirer (at least) of the fine arts, and posses- 
sed all the outli ;es of natural and physiological science, is beyond 
doubt, or contradiction. He enjoyed aiso a faculty, of which all 
kings are desirous, from its imposing and useful results, that of a 
good natural tact for inquiry, for adopting the ideas of others in 
conversation, and giving them the air of originating with himself. 



1XXV1 APPENDIX IV. 

By this faculty, he was enabled to dictate to artists on sculpture 
and painting, to criticise composition with musicians, and in conver- 
sation with the different professors, to draw them out, and dismiss 
them, contented with themselves, and impressed with an high idea 
of his own talents and accomplishments.* Well aware of the im- 
portance of the sciences in improving manufactures, advancing 
agriculture, and increasing the means of defence in war, he was 
equaily alive to the absurdity of that false and sophistical metaphysic, 
which had been the boast and triumph of schoolmen; and which 
had so largely contributed to plunge Europe in ignorance and su- 
perstition. While, therefore, knowledge had every thing to hope 
from him, as a protector, it had the less to fear from his craft, as an 
emperor. It will ever remain as a testimony of his enlarged views 
and liberal respect for science, that the first article of the treaty 
he imposed upon Naples, after the battle of Marengo, stipulated 
for the release of Dolomieu, the naturalist, who had been made 
prisoner on his return from Egypt, and had been treated with every 
indignity, which barbarilv and pusillanimous vengeance could in- 
flict. 

It is not then wonderful, that Napoleon in a great measure suc- 
ceeded to captivate many of that class of his subjects, and to blind 
them to the fatal consequences of his despotic character. The ha- 
bits which the revolution has occasioned of substituting practical no- 
tions of expediency, for theoretical ideas of government, have also 
induced many to give their support, or at least their tacit consent to 
his government, who were intrinsically democratic, and who looked 
forward impatiently to the epoch, which should emancipate science 
from patronage, and the republic from domination; esteeming the 
then existing order of things to be transitory, and to be necessitated 
by circumstances, which at no very distant day might cease to be 
influential. Upon the whole it may be concluded, that the majority 
of the most respectable members of this body are in sentiment repub- 
lican, and that those who escaped from the personal influence (it 
might almost be called fascination) of the emperor, have never de- 
viated from that political principle. But whether they have resisted 
imperial solicitation, or have yielded up the noble independence 
which should always accompany genius, the whole body seem at 
heart united in a love of rational liberty and a free government, which 
is more or less openly exhibited, according to the varying energy 
and candour of individual character. It is but justice however to 
state, that since the return of the Bourbons, hostilities were com- 
menced by the court, who, in violation of their solemn promise, that 
none should be pursued for political opinions or acts, dismissed from 
the national institute its most efficient members; and in order to di- 

* It is thus that he is said to have for a moment seduced Benjamin Cons- 
tant, and to have tamed the republican, by a mixture of admiration for his 
ability, and of coincidence with his opinions. 



Political summary, lxxvii 

minish still further the influence of this body, broke it up into sepa- 
rate academies. The enterprising and scientific Carnot, who had in 
the most difficult times preserved the integrity of his principles, 
who, sacrificing to his country all personal feelings, had stepped 
forward to protect the national independence, was among the first 
struck off the list, although his candour and simplicity of faith might 
have afforded a far surer pledge of security to the reigning dynasty, 
than can be found in the sycophancy of that host of temporizers, who 
have deserted the imperial for the royal court, and are again ready 
to pass over to any other cause, which promises an increase of emolu- 
ments or honours to the seceder. 

In the same proscription stands also Gregoire, the advocate of ne- 
gro emancipation, the unsubdued supporter of religious freedom, 
the upholder of the Christian religion, and the protector of its 
priests, at a moment when all, who valued safety above honour and 
conscience, were eager to renounce their faith, and to attest their 
sincerity, by persecuting the clergy. 

In this barbarous sacrifice of science to vengeance, even Monge, 
the projector of the institution itself, and one of the best geometers 
of France, was not spared. Where at that moment were the firmness 
and dignity which should belong to elevated pursuits? Where the 
courage, which science and virtue should inspire? Had a body, so 
respectable, and so weighty in public opinion, as the institute, have 
opposed but a passive resistance (if the phrase be allowable) to this 
preliminary persecution; had they either resigned their seats, or re- 
fused to fill up the places of the ejected members, how different a 
character might they have impressed upon the government! What 
a torrent of blood might they have saved! What a tremendous re- 
action possibly prevented! 

The only set of men decidedly favourable to the restoration, if the 
emigrants and privileged persons be excepted, are the lawyers, who 
find in the simple enactments, and equal jurisprudence of the Code 
Napoleon, an obstacle to litigation, highly unfavourable to their eco- 
nomic and ambitious views. The elder members of the law, es- 
pecially the remains of the ancient parliaments, obliged to re-com- 
mence their studies, yet averse from the labour of learning, look 
back with regret to those forms, without which their original stock of 
acquired knowledge is useless and antiquated. The gens de robe 
[gownmen] also, holding under the old regime a middle place in 
society, and enjoying a sort of secondary nobility, inherit many of 
the prejudices of the higher classes, and consider themselves a9 
degraded by the revolution. It is a circumstance most unfortunate 
for humanity, that the lawyers, whose interests, well understood, 
should universally attach them to the cause of liberty, are, in fact, 
extremely prone to lend themselves to arbitrary power; and prefer 
the honours and emoluments which a monarch can bestow, to the 
elevation and distinction that free forms of government hold out to 
talent and to public services. No situation in civilized life is more 



IXXVIII APPENDIX IV. 

dignified than that of the lawyer in a free state, administering justice 
without bias or partiality; no condition is more abject than that of a 
slavish and complying bar, distorting the laws to oppress the subject, 
and known only by the injuries it inflicts on society. It is, however, 
but justice to state, that the French lawyers are not unanimous in 
their hostility to liberty; that many of them, disgusted at the recol- 
lection of revolutionary violence, and influenced by their habitual 
love of established order, regard the reigning dynasty as the instru- 
ments of peace, and that many more are anxious to establish a real 
representative system, and look rather to that end than to the quali- 
ties of the governor, or to the peculiar form, under which the gov- 
ernment shall be administered. 

To this moral view of the state of popular opinion may be append- 
ed the geographical estimate of Fouche, whose situation, as minister 
of police, entitles him to considerable credit, upon a point like the 
present. His views, likewise, will afford a necessary correction of 
propositions, which are inevitably somewhat too general, and will 
aid in a further approximation towards truth. 

The north of France, according to his statement, is in general mo- 
derate. The wesi, especially La Vendee, is royalist; but the great 
cities do not always partake in the enthusiasm, which the country 
people feel in favour of the ancient regime. Auvergne is constitution- 
ally disposed, while in Lyons there are two parties. In the south, 
royalism is of a more fanatical and inflammable character, and ma- 
nifests itself by a degree of outrage and violence, which serves only 
to generate disgust, and to aggravate hostility to the royal cause in 
other quarters. In the great towns also of this part of France, and 
amongst the labouring poor, loyalty is by no means so general, or 
active, and the entire protestant population is unfavourable to the 
new government, from a dread of re-action, and an apprehension of 
persecution. In the east, Alsace, Lorraine, the three bishoprics, the 
Ardennes, Champaigne, Burgundy, Franche Comte, and Dauphiny, 
are opposed to the royal dynasty. With respect to Paris, the capital 
contains within its precincts a sufficient number of all factions, to 
give a temporary and alternate triumph to each party, as circum- 
stances become favourable to its domination. At the epoch of the 
return of Napoleon, in the course of a few hours, the white cockade 
disappeared from the streets, and was superseded by the tri-coloured 
ribband; and this did not so much arise from the tergiversation of in- 
dividuals, as from the retreat of one party, and the renewed confi- 
dence Of the other; yet the public places were always crowded. In 
case of civil war, Fouche calculates that the royalists would prevail 
in ten departments, that parties would be balanced in fifteen, and that 
in the rest a few royalists would be opposed to the mass of the peo- 
ple. It is usually imagined that the French take but little interest in 
the political events, which are passing before them; but the reverse 
is most certainlv the truth. 



POLITICAL SUMMARY. Ixx'lX 

Independently of the diffusion of education, the return of so 
many veterans from the army disseminates, among- the common 
people, a spirit of observation and reflection; and the inhabitants of 
the departments hold the Parisians in contempt, for their apparent 
fickleness arid absence of determined spirit. During our residence 
in Paris, we were assured by a gentleman, recently returned from 
a considerable tour, that this sentiment was universal; and that in 
one instance, in which the municipality thought proper to parade 
the royal bust through the streets of the town, to form what they 
term an inauguration, the mayor and his officers could not find an 
individual to join the procession, and that the groups in the street 
turned their backs as it passed, affecting not to be aware of the 
transaction. 

At the commencement of the revolution, the interest taken in 
politics was universal, and pamphlets and gazettes, adapted to all 
comprehensions, appeared in varied and rapid profusion. 

The violence of the jacobin faction for a time repressed all pub- 
lic demonstrations, and the political agitation was confined to the 
terrorist chiefs of the revolutionary committees. The spirit of the 
people, however, continued to show itself in the zeal and purity of 
the elections. The reign of Napoleon was likewise successful in 
repressing the manifestation of opinion, as utterly inconsistent with 
the nature of his police, or with military government. But the re- 
storation of 1814, brought the public mind once more to bear 
upon politics, and the reign of the hundred days renewed all the 
neglected notions of republican liberty. At the present moment, 
if deprived of their rights as citizens, the people are closely occu- 
pied with public interests. With less outward expression than at 
the commencement of the revolution, there reigns a greater degree 
of political good sense. Public discussions in taverns, and petitions 
for redress of grievances, of course cannot take place, as they were 
wont to do in this country. Both the genius of the government, 
and the momentary lassitude of the nation, fatigued by the immen- 
sity of its sacrifices, are adverse to such public acts. The abuse 
also which the Jacobins made of clubs, and the certain death which 
former signatures to petitions, hostile to their principles, entailed on 
the wretched victims of their reign, contributed to bring these mea- 
sures into disrepute. But a national and an individual sentiment of 
patriotism, an entire conviction of the equality of rights among all 
orders of the state, and an attachment to the basis of the constitu- 
tion, pervade private conversations, and give a very general tone to 
French society. 

Compressed by domestic tyranny and by foreign invasion, public 
spirit has had only the short intervals of the revolution of 1789, and 
that of the hundred days, for its free manifestation; and these make 
too short a period for the formation of civic habits. But there has 
been abundant opportunity for developing and confirming in the 
great majority of the people a knowledge of their rights, and a 
feeling of the necessity for those advantages; which result from 



1XXX APPENDIX IV. 

a free government. In whatever point of view the nation be re- 
garded, it is evident that the king and nobiiity have to contend 
against a fearful opposition; and it is admitted by all parties, that 
the throne is for the present, secured solely by the bayonets of fo- 
reigners. To consider the revolution then as at an end, and to 
imagine that the allied sovereigns have conquered the absolute pos- 
session of despotic power, either for themselves or for the French 
monarch, would be the excess of folly. The dislocation of society 
has been too complete, and the shock given to prejudces and opin- 
ions too violent, to admit of a quiet resumption of old habits and 
ideas. The constitution of the ancient monarchy of France, con- 
sisting of usages rather than that of rights, of maxims rather than 
of laws, rested fundamentally upon conventional notions and tacit 
agreements, now for ever buried " in the tomb of the Capulets." 
A complete counter-revolution is impossible; and any despotism 
which can be substituted for it, must be composed of such jarring 
and ill-assorted materials, as never can dove-tail and consolidate into 
harmony and stability. 

Rudis indig-estaque moles 
Nee quidquam, nisi pondus iners; congestaque eodem 
Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum. 

To meet the exigencies of the times, it is absolutely necessary to 
abandon those temporising andjournatier schemes of policy, which, 
looking only to instant emergencies, and to present obstacles, pro- 
ceed from expedient to expedient, and add the uncertainty of chance 
to a Machiavellian contempt for right.* 

Between the high prerogative doctrines, and the reveries of ab- 
stract democracy, there exists a mezzo-t ermine ', in which alone the 
nations of Europe can settle into permanent tranquillity: but to attain 
this point requires much more of philosophy, and a more general- 
izing perception, than has hitherto guided the councils either of the 
restored king, or of the congress of Vienna. Sottise des deux 
parts, [folly on both sides,] the motto of abstract discussions in 
general, may be applied with great aptitude to the revolutionary 
contest It is by a frank avowal of mutual errors, that a permanent 
reconciliation can alone be effected. Is it not then the excess of 
presumption to demand that concessions should only be made on 
one side, and those by the party, which in every stage have been the 
sufferers by the misconduct of its opponents? The objection usu- 
ally offered to this mode of reasoning, that the government is too 
feeble, and that the rebellious spirits are too bold to allow of a mo- 
derated liberty, is weak and despairing. 

* It is true, that the wisdom of all these latter times in princes' affairs, is 
rather fine deliveries and shifting^ of dangers and mischiefs, when they are 
near, than solid and grounded courses to keep them aloof: but this is but to 
try masteries with fortune. — Bacon. 



POLITICAL SUMMARY. lxxxi 

Of what use is the temporary occupation of France by the allied 
armies, but to give that weight to the government, which will ena- 
ble it to adopt a generous and liberal line of policy? If that end 
be not obtained; if the people of France be not satisfied, any des- 
potism that five years can organize, may be overthrown in a mo- 
ment; and the king, to retain his power, must be content to remain 
for the rest of his life in statu fiu/iillari, and to hold his sceptre in a 
feudal subjection to the allies, who placed it in his hands. To add to 
the distraction that naturally belongs to a forcible and unnatural resto- 
ration, the same fatality which has attended the privileged ciasses 
through all the successive stages of the revolution, has urged them 
to that schism amongst themselves, which has surrounded the throne 
with new difficulties and dangers, has increased the agitation of so- 
ciety, and threatens to bury both parties in a common destruction, 

It has happened in recent events, nearly as in the restoration of 
Charles II of England, that the pretensions of those, who followed 
the fortunes of the king in his adversity, have by far outstripped all 
possibility of compliance or benevolence in the monarch. The 
ruined condition of the finances, the extensive drain established by 
the victorious foreigners, and the necessity of purchasing friends 
amongst the most powerful adherents of the imperial government, 
have prevented him from bestowing either honours or emoluments 
with that liberality, or in that exclusive direction, which would 
meet the wants and wishes of the emigrant nobility The impos- 
sibility of restoring the forfeited estates, and of re-establishing the 
totality of feudal rights, has naturally formed another source of dis- 
agreement and complaint. The monarchy and the aristocracy fell 
together; and the noblesse cannot understand, why the restoration 
should not be equally simultaneous. From this starting-post of dis- 
content, the ultra-royalists, in separating from their king, have hur- 
ried almost into rebellion against his authority; and have acted with 
an intemperance, of which they have so harshly accused the people, 
in the earlier periods of the revolution. Not satisfied with the ri- 
gorous measures adopted by the king, and as if conscious that force 
alone can uphold their obsolete pretensions, they sought to push the 
government into such extremes of violence, as would infallibly have 
produced a new insurrection. To gratify their notions of govern- 
ment, every trace of the revolution must be obliterated, the clergy 
reinstated in their property, every leading character of the former 
governments executed or exiled. 

Confiding in the strength of their foreign allies, they set no bounds 
to the rigour of their projected punishments, but considered the 
people as delivered into their hands, for the completion of vengeance. 
To this overweening and shortsighted policy, it is unnecessary to 
add, that the princes of the royai house are attached; and the anti- 
cipation of a future reign decides many against the present govern- 
ment, whom more moderate measures and brighter promises might 
have bound to the throne. 

1 



lXXXU APPENDIX IV. 

To conciliate his family, and to quiet the clamours of the emi- 
grants, the king had in vain sacrificed his own interests, and endan- 
gered his reputation with posterity. The unrelenting persecution 
of men, the most eminent for talents and courage: the execution of 
many subaltern and insignificant characters, put to death for the sole 
purpose of exciting terror; the superseding of the usual jurisdictions 
of the kingdom, by more arbitrary courts; and the violation, on the 
slightest pretences, of amnesties, granted merely for begetting a false 
security; were insufficient to gratify the emigrant spirit. A most 
flagrant instance of this last violence occurred at Rheims, in the case 
of general Travot, for the institution of whose trial telegraphic or- 
ders were dispatched from Paris, after the proclamation of a gene- 
ral amnesty for ail whose processes had not already commenced, in 
order that he might not be included in that predicament, when the 
amnesty should arrive by the ordinary post, to be proclaimed in the 
department where he was confined. The continuance, and even ag- 
gravation of the infamous system of police, the entire thraldom of 
the press, the crowding of the prisons with persons of the lowest 
ranks, the practised schemes of false conspiracies, formed by subal- 
tern agents of the government to ensnare the people, and the subse- 
quent execution of the victims; these, and many other outrages up- 
on the people, as they were the deeds of the ministers, will be de- 
nied by the ultra-royalist faction. But if that party are not satisfied 
with such acts of rigour, if they are not willing to stop short at that 
point, beyond which the king did not think it safe to proceed, their 
case will be but little benefitted by the denial. 

From a variety of circumstances, from accidental remarks drop- 
ped in society, and from the general tone of criticism adopted by in- 
dividuals of the ultra- royalist faction, an opinion might be inferred, 
that some hope existed among them of changing the head of the go- 
vernment; of either persuading, or forcing, the king to resign, and 
of placing the daughter of Louis XVI on the throne. Such an in- 
tention is easily denied; and it may perhaps be too loose a conjec- 
ture to hazard upon individual opinion: but the masculine and de- 
cided tone of character of the dutchesse d'Angouleme, the unpun- 
ished attempt to proclaim her and her husband in the west, th<; adop- 
tion in that part of the country of their colours,* the discussions 
respecting: the Salic law, introduced into the English journals, all 
tend to confirm the suspicion. The unwonted firmness and decision 
of the king in the instance of the ordonnance, by which, in dismis- 
sing the chambers, and proceeding to a new election, he deprived 
the princes of their presidencies in the electoral colleges; and the se- 
cresy which he observed respecting the whole measure to them, 
while they dined daily at his table, evince the pressure of reasons of 
atate, more than usually urgent, and personally applicable to the 
members of his family. 

* The green ribbon is now worn publicly by the Angouleme faction, as a 
badge of party. 



POLITICAL SUMMARY. lxXXM 

A story was some time back confidantly circulated in Paris 
amongst persons of the higher classes, that the minister of police 
had intercepted, and shown to the king, the correspondence of some 
members of his family, in which, reports were fabricated and sent 
to Flanders, to be there thrown into circulation, whose object was to 
lead the king into a suspicion of his ministers, and to induce him to 
throw himself into the arms of the uitra-royalists. Another anec- 
dote, which was related about the same time, stated that some arti- 
cles, personally disrespectful to the king, having appeared in a 
London paper, it had been deemed expedient to buy over the editor; 
but that, when the attempt was made, it was discovered that he was 
already in the pay of the ultra-royalist chiefs. How far such anec- 
dotes are worthy of credit, it is difficult to determine, the want of a 
free channel for intelligence giving an unnatural currency to all 
sorts of fabrication at Paris; but the total abandonment with which 
the king has thrown himself into the guidance of his ministers, and 
his opposition to the wishes of his family, give a great colour and 
plausibility to such relations. 

Without, however, attributing to the ultra-royalists designs of 
such excessive hostility towards the king, their separation from his 
interests, and their clamorous opposition to his measures, betray a 
degree of blindness and of selfishness perfectly incomprehensible. 
In the old times, when the thrones of Europe rested on the firmest 
basin, it was esteemed but ill policy in the heirs of the kingdom, to 
set an example of insubordination. But at the present moment, to 
disturb the march of government, to agitate the nation with party 
disputes, and to ridicule the person and character of the king, is to 
fight the battles of the revolution, and to shake the monarchy to its 
centre. The dilemma in which the king is placed, is difficult and 
embarrassing. Concession to the ultras is pregnant with certain, 
with inevitable destruction. The measures of this party, as they 
are founded in passion, so are they dependant solely upon physical 
force. The contempt the ultras entertain for the people, blinds 
them to the remotest sense of danger, and places the possibility of 
re-action perfectly beyond their calculations. The sang froid and 
indifference, with which propositions the most violent were discus- 
sed, at Paris, in the salons of the emigrants, excited in our minds 
the most painful emotions. Nothing could be more distressing than 
to behold individuals, who, politics apart, are gentle, amiable, po- 
lished, and hospitable, thus casting themselves headlong upon ob- 
vious destruction. The axe seemed to vibrate over their heads, as 
they talked; and the most terrific images of revolutionary horror 
were excited, by the desperate intemperance of their wishes and ex- 
pectations. The king, on the other hand, in throwing himself into 
the hands of his ministers, has to encounter the whole force of re- 
sistance of the ultra-royalists; and to balance their intrigues, he must 
associate himself with persons whom he dare not trust, and who 
have little trust in him. Without energy of character to adopt a 
line of conduct altogether popular, and coincident with the spirit of 



lxxxiv 



APPENDIX iV. 



the day; without any accurate notions, as to what should be granted 
and what withheld; his difficulties serve only to throw him upon ar- 
bitrary and violent measures; and the ultra-royalists have the un- 
blushing hypocrisy to profit by them, and to assume the mask of 
moderation. In the meantime, the people, deprived of the virtual 
exercise of the elective franchise> and perfectly sensible of the hos- 
tility of both parties to liberty, remain quiet and indifferent. Satis- 
fied that the division must in the end prove beneficial to themselves, 
they await a better opportunity for exertion and enterprise. 

In this condition of the country, it is impossible to speculate upon 
futurity, with any hope of precision. The line at present pursued 
by the ministry, favourable neither to the noblesse nor to the people, 
wants unity of design, and firmness of execution, to lead to impor- 
tant results, while the age and infirmities of the king prevent any 
extended calculation on the effects of his measures The conduct, 
which can alone terminate in order and harmony, is obvious. A 
manly recognition of constitutional principles, the establishment of 
an entire representation of the people, a real responsibility of minis- 
ters, and an unshackled press, absolute indifference between sects of 
religion, and a perfect oblivion of the past, would lay the foundation 
of a powerful and prosperous monarchy; and with these advantages 
the peopie would be reconciled to continue under the government of 
the reigning dynasty. To hope, however, for such a government, 
cither from the king, or the princes of his house, seems almost ro- 
mantic. Measures of temporary expediency, independent of all 
principle, except that of the re-consolidation of the ancient regime, 
are alone to be expected from either party. To set the nation at 
ease respecting property, the claims of the priesthood should, above 
all things, be silenced and put to rest; yet both moderes and ultras 
phce their hope in maintaining the cause of royalty, in the agency 
of religion. Absurd and superstitious ceremonies are revived: pro- 
cessions, funeral services for the victims of the revolution, endow- 
ments of convents, every species of bigotry, is put into action 
among a nation of free thinkers, or at least of enemies to clerical 
pretension. 

In matters of religious form, whatever is not sacred is ridiculous. 
A cat or an onion were respectable objects of worship, in " the good 
old times" of Egypt; while the Jupiter of Phidias could procure but 
an equivocal respect from the enlightened Greeks. In this particu- 
lar, the taste of the people must be gratified, or they reject the 
whole. The ridicule, which the very populace attached to the pup- 
pet-show procession of the fete dieu, is highly dangerous to the 
authority, from which the celebration of that ceremony emanated; 
and it attaches itself by a natural association with every other func- 
tion of the crown, and still more with the person of its possessor. 
On this point there cannot be two opinions. The churches in France 
are universally empty, or occupied exclusively by the infirm, by 
females, and by children. Of the many churches we visited, that of 
Dieppe was the only one, in which we saw a decent congregation- 



FOLITICAL SUMMARY. lxXXV 

And in this the females abounded in a ratio of nearly ten to one. In 
Paris, the very lowest classes cannot conceal their disrespect for 
priests, and their public ceremonies. 

To attempt the regeneration of clerical authority in France, is 
obviously vain. In spite of Jesuits, inquisitions, and all other estab- 
lishments, Catholicism lies prostrate before the revolution. If the 
government desire to re-establish religion in France, it must be 
effected by a greater conformity to reason, and by the abolition of 
mummeries, which have no longer any effect, but to afford an ob- 
vious butt for the ridicule of the dullest apprehensions. 

To sum up the particulars of the political state of France, in a 
few words (for the subject in detail is nearly inexhaustible), the na- 
tion may be at present considered as an aggregate of two distinct 
races, the representatives of the ninth and of the nineteenth centu- 
ries, between whom there is neither community of interests, feelings, 
nor opinions. And however formidable the one party may seem, by 
the weight of a despotic government and an armed alliance, the 
other possesses the whole influence of numbers, wealth, public opi- 
nion, and the character and tendency of the age. 

After the numerous and extraordinary changes which have taken 
place in Europe, it would be ridiculous to affect a prophetic insight 
into the revolutions that are immediately to ensue. The reigning 
family may continue on the throne for many years; for there is 
neither confidence among individuals, nor concentration enough of 
the means of opposition to depose them, without the concurrence of 
some accidental shock. They may, on the other hand, be swept off 
from power in a moment; for the discontent is general, and public 
opinion decidedly against them. The single circumstance of the 
domination of foreigners might drive the whole nation to arms, 
should a leader appear possessed of the confidence and affections of 
the people. 

Upon the whole, however, the chances in favour of the perma- 
nence of the existing order of things are few: the probabilities of its 
speedy dissolution are numerous and weighty. The fatal division 
of the royalists amongst themselves; the violence, and at the some 
time the weakness, of the measures of government; the increasing 
difficulties of the finance; seem to promise little from the influence 
of time. If the attention be turned, from the internal condition of 
France, to the state of Europe at large, the causes of mutation will 
appear more numerous, and influential. 

The condition of England, the centre and very soul of the coalition 
against the revolution, is critical. Its poverty alone will for many 
years prevent a further interference with the affairs of the continent: 
it is likewise more than doubtful, whether the nation itself would 
permit a longer continuance of that policy, by which it has so mate- 
rially suffered; and there seems every reason for supposing that one 
or both of these causes may produce a speedy recall of the army of 
' occupation, if, indeed, the French government itself be not anxious 
to remove such expensive friends. 



ixxxvi 



APPENDIX IV. 



If, from England, the attention be turned to continental affairs, it 
meets with an assemblage of heterogeneous and hostile elements, 
held together by the operation of force, and in compliance with the 
interests of a few individuals, not united by the cementing bond of 
public utility, and the common good. 

In Italy> the Netherlands, Germany, and Poland, the natural boun- 
daries of kingdoms violated, the interest and feelings of nations des- 
pised, there remain aggregates, rather than masses; collections of 
individuals, rather than communities or states. By the contradic- 
tion of prejudices and opinions, by the- abrupt subversion of customs 
and habits, the relations of sovereign and people are exchanged for 
those of the task-master and slaves. 

The European republic thus disjointed, the christian population 
thus dissatisfied, all settied and established notions of right are sacri- 
ficed to the ambition and avarice of a few military chieftains. 

In circumstances thus unnatural and perverted, it is not surprising 
that revolutionary principles have disseminated themselves from the 
Tagus to the Neva: and that a spirit of liberty, the eldest born off- 
spring of the art of printing, continues to impress indelible changes 
upon every nation of the civilized world. Before this influence, ex- 
isting institutions must bend; before this illumination, abuses and 
absurd combinations must disappear; or society will eventually dis- 
solve and founder; to be re-cast in a mould more adapted to existing 
feelings, co-ordinate with the interests, and commensurate with the 
necessities of the great mass of mankind. 




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